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.
She meanwhile sustained her usual energetic and gossipy flow of correspondence with a wide range of literary and personal connections. She got caught up in the speculation surrounding the split between Effie
and John Ruskin
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...
During her 1860 sojourn in Italy she declined an invitation to meet George Eliot
because the latter was living with a married man. Her friendship with distinguished scientist Mary Somerville
blossomed during this trip, and...
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
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. et al. “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 Autobiography of a ShirtmakerNineteenth Century Prose, Vol.
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
Louisa Baldwin
She became interested in Eliot
's work after her sister Georgiana
introduced them.
Taylor, Ina. Victorian Sisters. Adler and Adler, 1987.
Ward, Mary Augusta. A Writer’s Recollections. Harper and Brothers, 1918.
107
Friends, Associates
Edward FitzGerald
Despite a somewhat reclusive life both before and after his separation from his wife within a year of their marriage, he was well connected with the Victorian literary scene, and expressed strong opinions on women...
Friends, Associates
Herbert Spencer
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.
