George Eliot

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Standard Name: Eliot, George
Birth Name: Mary Anne Evans
Nickname: Polly
Nickname: Pollian
Self-constructed Name: Mary Ann Evans
Self-constructed Name: Marian Evans
Self-constructed Name: Marian Evans Lewes
Pseudonym: George Eliot
Pseudonym: Felix Holt
Married Name: Mary Anne Cross
GE , one of the major novelists of the nineteenth century and a leading practitioner of fictional realism, was a professional woman of letters who also worked as an editor and journalist, and left a substantial body of essays, reviews, translations on controversial topics, and poetry.

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Education Alice Meynell
In the summer of 1852 Elizabeth and Alice Thompson (later AM ) began their education under their father's instruction. Recording her daughters' lessons, Christiana Thompson writes, Dear little angels do their writing . ....
Education Jessie Fothergill
She acquired much knowledge through her voracious consumption of books: I loved books, and read all that I could get hold of, and have had many a rebuke for poring over those books instead of...
Education Viola Meynell
After leaving school at sixteen, VM read widely on her own, especially English authors: George Eliot , Dickens , George Meredith , Arnold Bennett , John Galsworthy , and Thomas Hardy .
MacKenzie, Raymond N. A Critical Biography of English Novelist Viola Meynell, 1885-1956. Edwin Mellen.
61, 65
Education Virginia Woolf
Between 1 January and 30 June 1897, her reading included but was not limited to the following: Charlotte Brontë , Lady Barlow (a commentator on Charles Darwin ), Dinah Mulock Craik , George Eliot ,...
Education Toru Dutt
TD and Aru were briefly enrolled at a boarding school in Nice where they studied French.
Rao, Raja, and Toru Dutt. “Aru and Toru”. Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, Writers Workshop.
After moving to England they continued their studies and attended the Higher Lectures for Women series begun by Henry Sidgwick
Education Agatha Christie
By the time Agatha was born, Clara Miller believed that girls ought not to learn to read before the age of eight. Defiantly, Agatha taught herself to read at five. She eagerly devoured Lewis Carroll
Education Simone de Beauvoir
SB knew her alphabet at three, and learned to read quickly once she suddenly perceived that the letters were symbols.
Beauvoir, Simone de. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. Translator Kirkup, James, Penguin.
20
Later, the scanty resources of my city childhood could not compete with the riches...
Education Susan Tweedsmuir
She was, however, always reading as a child: she and her sister had few books, but knew by heart whole chapters of the ones they did have. As a child Susan hated Mrs Mortimer 's...
Education Kate Clanchy
As a child KC loved Victorian stories for girls—Frances Hodgson Burnett 's A Little Princess and The Secret Garden, Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (or Susan Coolidge)'s What Katy Did, and Louisa May Alcott
Education Bernice Rubens
At university, she was President of both the student Music and Socialist societies, as well as a member of the Students' Union Council.
Gilbert, Sarah. “Bernice Rubens”. Cardiff University Magazine, Vol.
1
, No. 1.
BR later found that her education slowed her development as a writer...
Education Mary Lavin
It was, she said later, through reading that I passed from childhood to adulthood, first through a chance encounter with Eliot 's Adam Bede (and that was the end of the school stories)...
Education L. M. Montgomery
LMM attended a one-room schoolhouse across the road from her grandparents' farmhouse, completing her time there in 1892. The following year, she went to the Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown for teacher training. Her...
Education C. E. Plumptre
Though nothing is know of CEP 's early education, in later life she kept an extensive library. On visiting her, Frederick James Gould noted that it was selected and arranged in an impressive order which...
Education Alison Uttley
Alice Jane Taylor (later AU ) was a strong-willed child who set her own agenda. She later remembered a trial of wills, at the age of two, with her godmother, which ended not in her...
Education Sarah Orne Jewett
She read extensively as a child, and came early to authors as diverse as Jane Austen , George Eliot , Margaret Oliphant , Henry Fielding , Laurence Sterne , Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriet Beecher Stowe

Timeline

December 1855: Barbara Leigh Smith, later Bodichon, founded...

National or international item

December 1855

Barbara Leigh Smith , later Bodichon, founded the Married Women's Property Committee (sometimes called the Women's Committee) to draw up a petition for a married women's property bill.

By December 1855: George Meredith published his first work...

Writing climate item

By December 1855

George Meredith published his first work of fiction, The Shaving of Shagpat: An Arabian Entertainment.

14 March 1856: A petition for Reform of the Married Women's...

National or international item

14 March 1856

A petitionfor Reform of the Married Women's Property Law, organized by the Married Women's Property Committee and signed by many prominent women, was presented to both Houses of Parliament.

By 2 August 1856: Jane Margaret Strickland published a novel,...

Women writers item

By 2 August 1856

Jane Margaret Strickland published a novel, Adonijah, a tale of the Jewish Dispersion; it was shortly attacked by George Eliot in Silly Novels by Lady Novelists as one of the deplorable types of fiction...

1858: Rachel Felix, the celebrated tragic actress,...

Building item

1858

Rachel Felix , the celebrated tragic actress, died of pulmonary consumption.

February 1858: Bessie Rayner Parkes described to George...

Building item

February 1858

Bessie Rayner Parkes described to George Eliot , in a letter, the limited company established by the Langham Place group to support The English Woman's Journal.

1861: A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued...

Writing climate item

1861

A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued what seems to be the earliest version of a game called Authors, whose object was to collect sets of cards bearing the names of writers and the...

By 25 October 1862: Victor Hugo completed the publication in...

Writing climate item

By 25 October 1862

Victor Hugo completed the publication in successive parts of his novelLes Misérables.

October 1864: The Working Women's College opened in Queen...

Building item

October 1864

The Working Women's College opened in Queen Street, London.

7 February 1865: The first issue appeared of George Smith's...

Writing climate item

7 February 1865

The first issue appeared of George Smith 's innovative evening newspaper, The Pall Mall Gazette.

1871-1872: A civil trial against the Tichborne estate...

Building item

1871-1872

A civil trial against the Tichborne estate trustees was brought to court and was eventually lost by the Tichborne Claimant who alleged that he was heir to the Tichborne estate in Hampshire.

January 1873: Jane Elizabeth Senior was appointed as a...

Building item

January 1873

Jane Elizabeth Senior was appointed as a (temporary) government inspector of pauper schools and workhouses: the first woman to hold this office.

July 1875: Hercegovina (at this date part of Bosnia),...

National or international item

July 1875

Hercegovina (at this date part of Bosnia), rebelled against rule by Turkey; in 1876 Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro also rose.

October 1877: Charles Kegan Paul arranged to purchase the...

Writing climate item

October 1877

Charles Kegan Paul arranged to purchase the publishing firm of his employer H. S. King to form Kegan Paul and Co.

1878: The first telephone company in the UK began...

National or international item

1878

The first telephone company in the UK began operations, at Chislehurst, Kent; it enabled private communication by phone between two points only.

Texts

Strauss, David Friedrich. The Life of Jesus. Translator Eliot, George, Chapman Brothers, 1846.
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. W. Blackwood, 1860.
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. Editor Haight, Gordon S., Clarendon, 1980.
Eliot, George, and W. B. Rands. The Poems of George Eliot. Thomas Y. Crowell, 1884.
Eliot, George. The Spanish Gypsy. W. Blackwood, 1868.