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.
Within a year CS
had become the lover of her American manager at work. William James Blech (later Blake)
, whom she called Wilhelm at first and later Bill. He was both an investment...
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...
Textual Features
Anne Stevenson
Despite the strong emotion expressed in some of these poems, AS
later remembered the volume as setting free her gift for irony.
Stevenson, Anne. Between the Iceberg and the Ship. University of Michigan Press.
126
The final poem, A Legacy, On my Fiftieth Birthday, is written...
Literary responses
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Reviews were generally derogatory. The poet's admireres could not be swayed. George Eliot
, with whom HBS
had recently begun corresponding, suggested that she ought not to have brought the Byron question before the public...
Literary responses
Hesba Stretton
Calling the novel an offspring of a bold imagination, the Athenæum comments that it is written without labour or spurious ornament, and that certain scenes are very well described.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2046 (1867): 44
Other reviewers compared...
Textual Production
Flora Thompson
In 1923 The Catholic Fireside launched FT
's column entitled the Fireside Reading Circle. As well as competitions for readers, with her critiques on their efforts, it included her own essays on literary topics...
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Of Eliot he wrote: this gifted woman was...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Anthony Trollope
The critical opinions he voices here are often cited. Chapter 13, entitled On English Novelists of the Present Day, gives first place to Thackeray
and second to George Eliot
. On her he voices...
Friends, Associates
Frances Eleanor Trollope
In addition to her supportive professional relationship with her husband, FET
was also close to other writers such as Charles Dickens
, her brother-in-law Anthony Trollope
, her mother-in-law Frances Trollope
, and George Eliot
Intertextuality and Influence
Joanna Trollope
Alice, a talented painter, child of an unhappy marriage, is married herself to a emotionally repressive husband who loves her. She has a beautiful, enviable house in a tight-knit village, and three small children (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...
Education
Susan Tweedsmuir
She was, however, always reading as a child: she and her sister had few books, but knew by heart whole chapters of the ones they did have. As a child Susan hated Mrs Mortimer
's...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Sarah Tytler
Clearly delighted with the opportunity to mix in literary circles, ST
recorded her personal observations of these authors in Men and Women Met by the Way, the final 100-page-long section of her family autobiography...
Education
Alison Uttley
Alice Jane Taylor (later AU
) was a strong-willed child who set her own agenda. She later remembered a trial of wills, at the age of two, with her godmother, which ended not in her...
Textual Features
Sophie Veitch
The other sub-plot takes place among the landed gentry, which the rough and practical Hepburn finds a wholly unknown social circle.
Veitch, Sophie. James Hepburn, Free Church Minister. A. Gardner.
63
It features the young and beautiful Ellinor, and her much older husband, General...
