Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
George Eliot
-
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.
Some felt she wrote too much too fast. Elizabeth Gaskell
commented in a letter of 1851, I wish she had some other means of support than writing, which must be pumped up instead of bubbling...
Literary responses
Anne Mozley
George Eliot
not only praised this review in a letter, but also instructed her publisher to send a copy of her next novel, The Mill on the Floss, to Bentley's
expressly so that it...
The American reviews were highly flattering. The reviewer for the Boston Transcript could think of no more powerful work from a woman's hand in the English language, not even George Eliot
at her best.
Gerzina, Gretchen. Frances Hodgson Burnett. Chatto and Windus.
67
Literary responses
Felicia Hemans
George Eliot
considered the title poem exquisite.
Eliot, George. The George Eliot Letters. Editor Haight, Gordon S., Yale University Press.
1: 72
Critic Gary Kelly
argues that this first-person narrative should be considered a dramatic monologue.
Hemans, Felicia. “Introduction and Editorial Materials”. Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Prose, and Letters, edited by Gary Kelly, Broadview, pp. 12 - 89; various pages.
39
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
MAW
's friend Benjamin Jowett
praised David Grieve as the best novel since George Eliot
.Walter Pater
also approved, but critics were not enthusiastic.
Colby, Vineta. The Singular Anomaly: Women Novelists of the Nineteenth Century. New York University Press.
150
Sales were good, but there were some hostile reviews...
Literary responses
Isa Craig
One of the readers of the English Woman's Journal, Marian Lewes
, wrote to its proprietor, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
, to say how deeply she had been affected by Infant Seamstresses. Supposing...
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
Reviews were positive. Novelist Margaret Woods
felt that the archaic world it depicted was the root of Marcella's charm.
Watters, Tamie, and Mary Augusta Ward. “Introduction”. Marcella, Virago, p. vii - xvi.
xvi
Margaret Oliphant
criticised the author in Blackwood's for asking readers to surrender all our...
Literary responses
J. K. Rowling
Of course nobody could review this book without implicit or explicit reference to the Harry Potter books. What, some wondered, would devoted child readers make of the sex and swearing? The novel violently divided commentators...
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
Arthur Conan Doyle
considered this novel better than anything George Eliot
had written.
This book resulted in public outcry. Douglas Jerrold
responded with wit: There is no God, and Harriet Martineau is his Prophet.
Webb, Robert Kiefer. Harriet Martineau: A Radical Victorian. Columbia University Press.
299
Mary Howitt
came to regret her contribution to the most awful book that...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Gaskell
The anonymous Concluding Remarks supplied by Frederick Greenwood
, editor of the Cornhill, set the tone for responses. He ranked the three final novels by EG
's delicate strong hand
Easson, Angus, editor. Elizabeth Gaskell: The Critical Heritage. Routledge.
458
as among the...
Literary responses
Anna Steele
In a lengthy review the Times noted that while Gardenhurst had many faults typical of first novels (citing other examples from Sir Walter Scott
, George Eliot
, and Charles Dickens
), it nonetheless has...
Literary responses
Jennifer Dawson
The Times Literary Supplement review described The Cold Country as a book in which JD
was a novelist with a mission, and in this respect positioned her with great writers such as George Eliot
...
Literary responses
Pamela Hansford Johnson
This novel marked a step forward in the public valuation of PHJ
. Walter Allen
called it one of the best novels of our time.
