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.
In 1887 Coventry Patmore
said of LW
that her depictions of contemporary life far surpassed those of Dickens
, Thackeray
, Trollope
, Eliot
, and Gaskell
, declaring her work to be equalled only...
Reception
Sir Walter Scott
Blackwood contrasted Scott's stormy relations with his publishers, with his own personal friendships with his authors, among them George Eliot
.
Reception
Pamela Hansford Johnson
Despite her own claim that she would not regard it as a compliment to be told she was in the mainstream of the contemporary novel,
Johnson, Pamela Hansford. Important to Me. Macmillan; Scribner.
34
The Times placed her after her death in the...
Reception
Charlotte Maria Tucker
CMT
, whose works sold very well, was regarded as a major female author during the mid-Victorian period. She was incensed when in 1882 some one wrote a sketch of her life, and requested her...
Reception
Mary Augusta Ward
Understanding the difficulties of dealing in detail with Victorian religious perplexity, MAW
herself placed the book in the tradition of religious or social propaganda
Ward, Mary Augusta. A Writer’s Recollections. Harper and Brothers.
By the time LC
's little book on George Eliot
appeared in late 1951, her best-known novels were reckoned to be this one, National Provincial, 1938, and Three Lives.
Reception
Margaret Oliphant
Emma Marshall
, another contributor, thought MO
's piece admirable,
Corelli took issue with the vicious reception Ouida had received, arguing that critics had read Ouida's novels in a spirit of fault-finding rather than giving the author . . . the fair chance of...
Publishing
Matilda Hays
When, however, MH
submitted an article on women's rights to the Westminster Review in early 1856, George Eliot
did her best to prevent its being published.
Publishing
Anne Mozley
AM
wrote for Bentley's Quarterly, during the first year of its brief run, a review of Adam Bede (anonymous, of course), which George Eliot
called on the whole the best review we have seen.
Eliot, George. The George Eliot Letters. Editor Haight, Gordon S., Yale University Press.
3: 213-14
Wordsworth, John, and Anne Mozley. “Memoir”. Essays from "Blackwood", edited by F. Mozley and F. Mozley, William Blackwood and Sons, p. xii - xx.
x
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
Publishing
Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP
's contributions to other periodicals include her article Everybody's Baby which appeared in Saint Pauls magazine in 1871.
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press.
III: 377
In 1894 she published articles on her great-grandfather Joseph Priestley
, on George Eliot
Publishing
Caroline Clive
After she became established as a novelist, CC
was approached by the editors of the new Once a Week in April 1859 with a request to write a serial for them: she was their first...
Publishing
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Further early short fiction by MEB
appeared in The Welcome Guest, a John Maxwell
publication that sold for twopence and aimed at the educated working classes. My Daughters, which appeared on 20 October...
Publishing
Anne Thackeray Ritchie
Anne Thackeray
's first novel, the anonymous The Story of Elizabeth, was serialized in the Cornhill Magazine alongside George Eliot
's Romola.
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press.
Schwartz-McKinzie, Esther, and Anne Thackeray Ritchie. “Introduction”. The Story of Elizabeth; and, Old Kensington, Thoemmes Press, p. iii - xxxii.
xix
Publishing
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
In later years, ESP
published essays on George Eliot
, whom she greatly admired, for Harper's Weekly (14 February 1885), The Independent (30 April 1885), and Harper's New Monthly Magazine (March 1882).
