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.
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...
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
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
