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.
Sutherland, John. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. Longman.
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.
Textual Production
Katharine S. Macquoid
George Eliot
wrote to KSM
on Christmas Day 1877 to thank her for sending a copy of her pretty tract about the Hospital.
Eliot, George. Letter to Katharine S. Macquoid.
This note has only recently been rediscovered. It was offered for sale...
Literary responses
Lucas Malet
Two things about this novel gave offence initially and had a long-term effect on its reputation: its treating the nasty
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.
topic of deformity, and its involving the hero emotionally with three women (his mother as...
Literary responses
Lucas Malet
Some reviewers discerned a likeness between Lydia's devotion to her father and that of Dorothea to her first husband in George Eliot
's Middlemarch.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
153
Literary responses
Lucas Malet
The Wages of Sin met sharply divided responses: fervent praise, or dismissal as risqué and distasteful. The Athenæum, the Times (which singled out Malet's golden gift of reticence, and a genuine appreciation of the...
Textual Production
Olivia Manning
After her return to England she sometimes wrote for the BBC
(with which her husband was now a producer), providing scripts for the long-running serial Mrs. Dale's Diary, one number in the series A...
Material Conditions of Writing
Jessie White Mario
George Eliot
wrote to Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
regarding JWM
's writing and her convalescence from a nervous condition, which she thought called for absolute rest.
Daniels, Elizabeth Adams. Jessie White Mario: Risorgimento Revolutionary. Ohio University Press.
142n3
Friends, Associates
Jessie White Mario
About this time JWM
was introduced to Thomas Adolphus Trollope
(another long-term English resident of Italy). She also knew George Henry Lewes
and later met his partner George Eliot
.
Daniels, Elizabeth Adams. Jessie White Mario: Risorgimento Revolutionary. Ohio University Press.
104, 112
Travel
Jessie White Mario
Her recovery from a nervous condition was hampered when Bodichon also fell ill and needed a nurse, causing Jessie to assume that role. It was at this time that she was introduced to George Eliot
Textual Features
Anne Marsh
She supplied this novel with a preface setting out many of her ideas about fiction. She thinks it should uphold the cause of morality, not by inculcating particular maxims but to bring actions and their...
Textual Production
Emma Marshall
EM
was an energetic letter-writer with a wide circle of correspondents. She often wrote occasional poetry (as, for instance, about religious music at the festival which later became the Three Choirs Festival
), and published...
Friends, Associates
Harriet Martineau
Marian Evans
, later George Eliot, visited HM
at her home in Ambleside.
Martineau, Harriet. “Introduction and Editorial Materials”. Selected Letters, edited by Valerie Sanders, Clarendon Press, pp. vii - xxxiii, 235.
xxiii
Intertextuality and Influence
Harriet Martineau
The novel prompted a complimentary letter on 7 November 1849 from Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë
) saying that in it he tasted a new and keen pleasure, and experienced a genuine benefit. In his...
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...
Education
Flora Macdonald Mayor
Although FMM
's father was, for the most part, more concerned with her fragile health than her academic development, the twin sisters received some home-schooling from their mother to quite a high level, since she...
