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.
Portrait of George Eliot, seated, after the 1881 painting of Francois Albert Durade.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Frances Hodgson Burnett
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 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 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 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.
Sutherland, John. Mrs. Humphry Ward. Clarendon Press.
243
Literary responses Harriet Martineau
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 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.
Lindblad, Ishrat. Pamela Hansford Johnson. Twayne.
125
It reminded him of George Eliot : he praised...
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 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 George Sand
The sentiments expressed in this and similar novels earned her the nickname the Anti-Matrimonial novelist from the Foreign Quarterly Review.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
The future George Eliot praised Jacques for its psychological anatomy of the early days...
Literary responses Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Bound in with the Bodleian 's copy of ?1795 is a fair scribal copy of Verses addressed to the Duchess of Devonshire upon reading her poem written in Switzerland, in 23 stanzas by W. Drummond
Literary responses Agnes Maule Machar
Responses to this novel were mixed. Poet William Wilfred Campbell thought it a watered-down version of George Eliot 's Felix Holt, but The Week called Machar our most gifted authoress.
Gerson, Carole, and Agnes Maule Machar. “Introduction”. Roland Graeme, Knight, Tecumseh Press, p. vii - xxiv.
xix
A review in...

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