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.
"George Eliot" by Universal Images Group/Contributor,Retrieved from https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/george-eliot-pen-name-of-mary-ann-evans-important-british-news-photo/113634333.
MAW
's friend Benjamin Jowett
praised David Grieve as the best novel since George Eliot
.Walter Pater
also approved, but critics were not enthusiastic.
qtd. in
Colby, Vineta. The Singular Anomaly: Women Novelists of the Nineteenth Century. New York University Press, 1970.
150
Sales were good, but there were some hostile reviews...
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.
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, 1984, p. vii - xvi.
xvi
Margaret Oliphant
criticised the author in Blackwood's for asking readers to surrender all our...
Literary responses
Lady Charlotte Elliot
LCE
received little critical attention either during or after her lifetime. The Athenæum obituary by Theodore Watts
described her as perhaps the latest noticeable addition to that bright roll of female poets of which Scotland...
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.
qtd. in
Gerson, Carole, and Agnes Maule Machar. “Introduction”. Roland Graeme, Knight, Tecumseh Press, 1996, p. vii - xxiv.
xix
A review in...
Literary responses
Emma Frances Brooke
The book was similarly well-received across the Atlantic. The Brooklyn Eagle found that the first few chapters almost reminds one of George Eliot
.
Brooke, Emma Frances. Sir Elyot of the Woods. William Heinemann, 1907.
endmatter
Literary responses
Jessie Fothergill
The subject-matter led one reviewer to comment that JFdoes not deal with the most agreeable of subjects.
Helen Debenham
observes that while JF
never abandons her social concerns, the emphasis shifts as she...
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
Arthur Conan Doyle
considered this novel better than anything George Eliot
had written.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. Mrs. Humphry Ward. Clarendon Press, 1990.
243
Literary responses
Rhoda Broughton
The Athenæum, describing Belinda as RB
's worst novel, noted a similarity of her central couple to Dorothea and Casaubon in George Eliot
's Middlemarch. It deemed Eliot's characterisation decidedly superior, maintaning that...
Literary responses
Edith J. Simcox
As noted by Laurie Zierer
in Broomfield
and Mitchell
's anthology of Victorian women writers, EJS
's connection with George Eliot
has saved her from permanent obscurity, [but] her stature as a Victorian writer and...
Literary responses
Lettice Cooper
The Manchester Guardian reviewer, Charles Marriott
, used a flattering comparison with George Eliot
, writing that LChas done for a contemporary industrial town . . . pretty much what Middlemarch did for a...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
A letter from George Eliot
written on 13 November 1877 thanked ESP
for her copy of Avis: I find the writing . . . filled with indications of that keen sensibility and observation which...
Procter, Bryan Waller. An Autobiographical Fragment and Biographical Notes, with Personal Sketches of Contemporaries, Unpublished Lyrics, and Letters of Literary Friends. Editor Patmore, Coventry, Roberts Brothers, 1877.
113
John Ruskin
wrote shortly after its appearance, I think Aurora Leigh the greatest poem in the English...
Literary responses
Julia Kavanagh
This work's simplicity appealed to Geraldine Jewsbury
, the reviewer for the Athenæum. She noted that it was a charming and touching story, wrought from the humblest and simplest of materials; but the interest...
Literary responses
Anne Ogle
The book was a great popular success. In the Westminster Review, George Eliot
advised readers to take up this volume, not . . . in the grave morning hours, when you want something strong...
