Gaskell, Elizabeth: The Moorland Cottage, v.1, 3 April 2008.
 

A short novel of 1850.

A young girl called Maggie, loves her overbearing brother, despite his occasional bullying. But will she give up the man she loves at her brother’s insistence?

Yes, the plot does have similarities with George Eliot’s ‘The Mill on the Floss’ and the heroines share the same name. Both have a climactic scene involving water and drowning. Eliot’s novel dates from 1860, so this came first. Despite the plot similarities, the treatment of the theme is rather different.