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.
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
Linda Villari
LV
and her husband were both friends of Vernon Lee
, accepting her hospitality and moving in the same circles.
Gunn, Peter. Vernon Lee: Violet Paget, 1856-1935. Oxford University Press.
96
Lee corresponded with LV
from the late 1870s to the early 1880s and discussed...
Friends, Associates
Julia Wedgwood
This friendship was cemented during visits to Linlathen in Forfarshire, the home of Thomas Erskine
, who was himself a major spiritual influence on JW
. Her letters to Gurney mention meetings with Darwin
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Gaskell
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
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Of Eliot he wrote: this gifted woman was...
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
Friends, Associates
Constance Naden
CN
was a friend of the two poets who shared the name Michael Field
(who also came from Birmingham) and of the medical doctor Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
(who presumably did not hold against her the...
Friends, Associates
Matilda Betham-Edwards
MBE
set a great deal of store by meeting men distinguished as authors or in other fields, as a spur to literary achievement of her own. She was given to boasting of her acquaintance with...
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
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
Friends, Associates
Florence Nightingale
Around this time FN
became acquainted with other literary women as well. In July 1852 George Eliot
, who had become her correspondent, remarked in another letter that there is a loftiness of mind about...
Friends, Associates
Anne Thackeray Ritchie
ATR
lived with the Stephens
after their marriage, and while there became a friend of such literary figures as George Meredith
, Henry James
(who described her after an early encounter as exquisitely irrational)...
Ward, Mary Augusta. A Writer’s Recollections. Harper and Brothers.
107
Friends, Associates
Frances Power Cobbe
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...
