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.
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
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.
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. et al. “Preface, Introduction and Editorial Materials”. A Monument to the Memory of George Eliot, Garland, 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.
26
, No. 2, pp. 110-26.
115
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)...
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...
