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George Eliot
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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.
Connections
| Connections | Author name Sort descending | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|
| 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... |
| Reception | Matilda Betham-Edwards | Geraldine Jewsbury
, reviewing this book for the Athenæum early the next year, was not exactly encouraging. She guessed the author's gender correctly, and judged the novel a pale imitation of Charlotte Brontë
's Jane... |
| Intertextuality and Influence | Matilda Betham-Edwards | The poems are printed chronologically (by the author's desire rather than the editor's). MBE
's introduction says nothing about her subject's parentage or his life-history, but canvasses the issues involved in selecting from his poems... |
| Textual Production | Matilda Betham-Edwards | |
| Travel | Matilda Betham-Edwards | MBE
spent a week with George Eliot
, George Henry Lewes
, and Barbara Bodichon
at an old rectory at Swanmore in the Isle of Wight, which Bodichon had rented for a Christmas holiday. Betham-Edwards, Matilda. Reminiscences. G. Redway, p. vi, 354 pp. 250-1 |
| Textual Production | Mathilde Blind | MB
published her George Eliot, the first life in the Eminent Women Series conceived by John H. Ingram
, and the first biography of her subject (just ahead of that by John Walter Cross |
| Author summary | Mathilde Blind | MB
was one of the leading poets of the later nineteenth century; her burning sense of political and social injustice runs like a unifying thread through her work. Her poetry combines great beauty of sound... |
| Travel | Mathilde Blind | Her preface to The Heather on Fire reports another visit, to the Isle of Arran in the summer of 1884. Blind, Mathilde. The Heather on Fire. Walter Scott. 3 |
| Textual Production | Mathilde Blind | Her translation contains a prefatory life of Strauss. In translating from him she was following in the wake of George Eliot
, whose version of his Life of Jesus, Critically Examined had appeared in 1846... |
| Friends, Associates | Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon | Barbara Leigh Smith
was introduced to George Eliot
by Bessie Rayner Parkes
; they soon became close. Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press. 106 |
| 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... |
| Cultural formation | Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon | By December 1860 BLSB
was sufficiently interested in Roman Catholicism
(to which Bessie Rayner Parkes
later converted) to write about her interest to George Eliot
, who responded with sympathy but a clear statement of... |
| 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 | 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... |
| Theme or Topic Treated in Text | Elizabeth Bowen | She writes admiringly of Jane Austen
, but far less so of George Eliot
, whom she regards as over-intellectual. Glendinning, Victoria. Elizabeth Bowen. Alfred A. Knopf. 81-2 |
Timeline
By December 1855: George Meredith published his first work...
Writing climate item
By December 1855
George Meredith
published his first work of fiction, The Shaving of Shagpat: An Arabian Entertainment.
December 1855: Barbara Leigh Smith, later Bodichon, founded...
National or international item
December 1855
Barbara Leigh Smith
, later Bodichon, founded the Married Women's Property Committee
(sometimes called the Women's Committee) to draw up a petition for a married women's property bill.
14 March 1856: A petition for Reform of the Married Women's...
National or international item
14 March 1856
A petitionfor Reform of the Married Women's Property Law, organized by the Married Women's Property Committee
and signed by many prominent women, was presented to both Houses of Parliament.
By 2 August 1856: Jane Margaret Strickland published a novel,...
Women writers item
By 2 August 1856
Jane Margaret Strickland
published a novel, Adonijah, a tale of the Jewish Dispersion; it was shortly attacked by George Eliot
in Silly Novels by Lady Novelists as one of the deplorable types of fiction...
1858: Rachel Felix, the celebrated tragic actress,...
Building item
1858
Rachel Felix
, the celebrated tragic actress, died of pulmonary consumption.
February 1858: Bessie Rayner Parkes described to George...
Building item
February 1858
Bessie Rayner Parkes
described to George Eliot
, in a letter, the limited company established by the Langham Place group to support The English Woman's Journal.
1861: A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued...
Writing climate item
1861
A company in Salem, Massachusetts, issued what seems to be the earliest version of a game called Authors, whose object was to collect sets of cards bearing the names of writers and the...
By 25 October 1862: Victor Hugo completed the publication in...
Writing climate item
By 25 October 1862
Victor Hugo
completed the publication in successive parts of his novelLes Misérables.
October 1864: The Working Women's College opened in Queen...
Building item
October 1864
The Working Women's College
opened in Queen Street, London.
7 February 1865: The first issue appeared of George Smith's...
Writing climate item
7 February 1865
The first issue appeared of George Smith
's innovative evening newspaper, The Pall Mall Gazette.
1871-1872: A civil trial against the Tichborne estate...
Building item
1871-1872
A civil trial against the Tichborne estate trustees was brought to court and was eventually lost by the Tichborne Claimant who alleged that he was heir to the Tichborne estate in Hampshire.
January 1873: Jane Elizabeth Senior was appointed as a...
Building item
January 1873
Jane Elizabeth Senior
was appointed as a (temporary) government inspector of pauper schools and workhouses: the first woman to hold this office.
July 1875: Hercegovina (at this date part of Bosnia),...
National or international item
July 1875
Hercegovina (at this date part of Bosnia), rebelled against rule by Turkey; in 1876 Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro also rose.
October 1877: Charles Kegan Paul arranged to purchase the...
Writing climate item
October 1877
Charles Kegan Paul
arranged to purchase the publishing firm of his employer H. S. King
to form Kegan Paul and Co.
1878: The first telephone company in the UK began...
National or international item
1878
The first telephone company in the UK began operations, at Chislehurst, Kent; it enabled private communication by phone between two points only.
Texts
Strauss, David Friedrich. The Life of Jesus. Translator Eliot, George, Chapman Brothers, 1846.
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. W. Blackwood, 1860.
Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. Editor Haight, Gordon S., Clarendon, 1980.
Eliot, George, and W. B. Rands. The Poems of George Eliot. Thomas Y. Crowell, 1884.
Eliot, George. The Spanish Gypsy. W. Blackwood, 1868.