George Eliot

George Eliot by Frederick Wedmore

George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, was the daughter of a land surveyor in the Midland Counties, not a poor clergyman's daughter, and she grew up in her father's home after her mother died in her childhood. She was never Herbert Spencer's pupil; she met him as an adult, already versed in abstruse subjects, and later became his friend. She served for a time as joint editor of the Westminster Review with Dr. Chapman, though her contributions to it were few. After some years in Coventry, where she absorbed the character of the Midlands she would later describe, she moved to London. At twenty-six she translated Strauss's Life of Jesus, and seven years after that, Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, delaying her turn to creative writing until a long apprenticeship in literature and philosophy was complete. In 1858, Scenes of Clerical Life, comprising the Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton, Janet's Repentance, and Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story, revealed her as a new novelist of fresh but still undeveloped art. Adam Bede, published in 1859, was her first work of complete art, contrasting the preaching Dinah Morris with the fascinating but unvirtuous Hetty. Her early fiction stayed close to provincial and country society, where she was strongest: Silas Marner treated obscure religious sects, The Mill on the Floss portrayed the lower middle class through the passionate Maggie, and Felix Holt dealt with country politics through Esther, Felix, and a Dissenting minister of Puritan dignity. Romola, in 1863, showed her power rooted in meditation and learning rather than observation, distinguishing her from Dickens and Thackeray. She then returned to English settings with Felix Holt and Middlemarch, the latter a vast panorama of provincial life told through several loosely joined stories, marking the first signs of relaxed literary style, a tendency that grew more pronounced, alongside scientific similes, in Daniel Deronda. That novel's study of Jewish life won praise from a Jewish community leader for its knowledge and sympathy, and showed her widening, saddened interest in human waste and mistake. She also wrote poetry, including Jubal and The Spanish Gypsy, exploring subjects and an intensity of feeling about music not found in her prose, though these works were secondary to her fame as a novelist. Her body of fiction, from Scenes of Clerical Life to the inauspicious Theophrastus Such, endures as the work of a grave, gifted, and serious artist.

By Frederick Wedmore · First published 1899 · Genre: Literary Criticism, Biography, Literary Essay · 2,156 words

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The accounts of George Eliot's earlier life, which are in general circulation, are in some respects imaginary. ‘George Eliot' -- Mary Ann Evans -- was not the daughter of a poor clergyman, nor was she ever ‘adopted' by a wealthy one. She was the daughter of a land surveyor in the Midland Counties, and was brought up at her father's home, her mother dying when Mary Ann Evans was still a child. Nor was she ever the ‘pupil' of Mr. Herbert Spencer, nor a frequent writer in the _Westminster Review_. She made the acquaintance and the friendship of Mr. Spencer when she was a woman, and already the mistress of the abstruse subjects in which she then chiefly delighted. She was for a time joint-editor of the _Westminster_ with Dr. Chapman; but her writings in that Review were neither numerous nor generally important. After a residence of some years in Coventry -- where she learned profoundly the features of the ‘Midlands,' which she afterwards described -- Mary Ann Evans came to London. At twenty-six years old she translated Strauss's _Life of Jesus_, and seven years later, Feuerbach's _Essence of Christianity_; but her efforts at creative writing were wisely delayed. Her apprenticeship to Literature and Philosophy was elaborate and laborious; her training was extensive and deep. It was not until 1858 that _Scenes of Clerical Life_ betrayed the presence of a new artist in Fiction -- an artist of fresh gifts, but of undeveloped art.

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essay · literary criticism · biographical criticism · Victorian literature · 19th-century fiction · English fiction · character study · moral philosophy · religious themes · provincial fiction · rural England · Midlands

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