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,1754-01-02.Retrieved from https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/george-eliot-pen-name-of-mary-ann-evans-important-british-news-photo/113634333.This image is licensed under the GETTY IMAGES CONTENT LICENCE AGREEMENT.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press, 1985.
106
Friends, Associates
Mary Linskill
In these straits she found her friends worse than useless; they had never experienced poverty, far less starvation. Jenny Miles
apparently reproached her with the fact that George Eliot
, Charlotte Yonge
, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Friends, Associates
Henry James
HJ
met George Eliot
in May 1869 and wrote memorably to his father of the most powerful beauty residing in her vast ugliness, which had made him end . . . in falling in...
Friends, Associates
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
In July that year her friendship with George Eliot
had been cemented and her opinion of G. H. Lewes
radically improved by a seaside visit to this unconventional couple at Tenby in Wales. (By...
He counted Thomas Carlyle
and John Stuart Mill
among his friends. George Eliot
would have liked to make their intellectual friendship an intimate one, but he broke it off.
Mitchell, Sally, editor. Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Garland Press, 1988.
Friends, Associates
Jane Ellen Harrison
Distinguished guests at Newnham
at this time included Ruskin
and Turgenev
; JEH
recalls giving them tours of the college in her Reminiscences of a Student's Life.
Harrison, Jane Ellen. Reminiscences of a Student’s Life. Hogarth Press, 1925.
44
A great admirer of George Eliot
Friends, Associates
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
In May 1869 George Eliot
recorded in her diary Bodichon's steady friendship at the time when G. H. Lewes
's son Thornie
was dying of tuberculosis of the spine. Bodichon visited twice a week and...
Friends, Associates
Edith J. Simcox
Elma Stuart
, who had also been an intimate friend of George Eliot
, became a close friend of EJS
. In March 1881 they spent a week together at Malvern, where they exchanged...
Friends, Associates
Eliza Lynn Linton
Eliza Lynn met a number of women authors who were once applauded but later complacently forgotten . . . . as literary fossils.
Linton, Eliza Lynn, and Beatrice Harraden. My Literary Life. Hodder and Stoughton, 1899.
85
She contended that Women who wrote were then few and far...
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, 1972.
104, 112
Friends, Associates
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Marks (later Ayrton) was the daughter of impoverished Jewish Polish immigrants and was a brilliant mathematician. BLSB
interviewed her for a Girton scholarship, and subsequently became deeply involved with her life and family. Marks spent...
Friends, Associates
Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP
knew personally and corresponded with many of the Victorian intelligentsia. In addition to her Langham Place associates already mentioned, her literary friends and acquaintances included Matilda Hays
, Harriet Martineau
, Anthony Trollope
,...
Friends, Associates
Edith J. Simcox
Her connection with George Eliot
and her own political activities brought EJS
into friendly association with a number of key social figures including William Morris
, Eliza Orme
, and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
.
Fulmer, Constance M., Margaret E. Barfield, and Edith J. Simcox. “Preface, Introduction and Editorial Materials”. A Monument to the Memory of George Eliot, Garland, 1998, pp. xi - xvii, 1.
xii
Fulmer, Constance M. “A Nineteenth Century ’Womanist’ on Gender Issues: Edith Simcox in her <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Autobiography of a Shirtmaker</span>”;. Nineteenth Century Prose, Vol.
