Comparative Literature Commons^™

Notes On Contributors

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Jonathan Ouvry is the great-great grandson of George Henry Lewes, and has been President of the Fellowship since 1984.

Kathleen Adams has been Secretary of the Fellowship since 1968. She initiated the Review in 1970, was editor until 1981 and co-editor 1982-91. She published Those of Us Who Loved Her in 1980.

Beryl Gray lectures in literature for the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies, Birkbeck College. She has recently completed an edition of Adam Bede for Everyman Paperbacks and is preparing The Mill on the Floss for the same series.

Graham Handley has published widely on George Eliot, his latest contribution …

George Eliot And The Politics Of National Inheritance, Bernard Semmel

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is a study of George Eliot's political imagination which traces the theme of inheritance through her fiction, taking it both in its ordinary sense of property bequeathed from one generation to another and in the extended sense of the transmission of a nation's culture and traditions. The theme is important in that it shows George Eliot's response to the alienating conditions of modem society and defines her - with 'her deep sense of dependence on the past, her commitment to the English political tradition, and her vision of English nationality' - as an essentially conservative thinker in the tradition …

The Bbc Middlemarch, Ian Mackillop

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

From 12th January to 16th February 1994 the BBC screened its six-part Middlemarch, produced by Louis Marks, scripted by Andrew Davies and directed by Anthony Page, six safe hands (too safe?). It has been issued as a two-cassette videogram (BBCV 5253, 1994) in two parts, the original episode-breaks removed; references here are to hour-minute-second of these tapes. The production is like a grand Folio Society edition.

The BBC Middlemarch is a browns-and-greens 'painterly' production, much of the extravagance of the original bled away. The two principals are given a dignity which Eliot did not make them suffer. Ladislaw (Rufus Sewell) …

George Eliot's Weimar, Gerlinde Roder-Bolton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

When George Eliot and G. H. Lewes arrived in Weimar on 2 August 1854, their expectation were high. They had come to Germany primarily to collect material for Lewes's biography of Goethe on which he had been working for some time, but the journey also represented the start of their life together. They had left London on 20 July and travelled via Antwerp, Brussels, Cologne and Frankfurt. At last they would walk through the streets where Goethe, 'the stately Jupiter', I had not so long ago walked himself. But the glimpses George Eliot caught of Weimar on their early morning …

Alfred Austin And George Eliot: Two Unpublished Letters, Kathleen Adams, William Baker

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Today, Alfred Lord Tennyson's successor as the Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin (1835- 1913), is a largely forgotten literary name from the late Victorian and Edwardian worlds of yesteryear. Austin's connection with George Eliot and G. H. Lewes will not be found documented in G. S. Haight's nine volume edition of The George Eliot Letters (New Haven, 1954-78) and his name does not appear in its index. The Autobiography of Alfred Austin Poet Laureate 1835-1910 (2 vols., 1911: reprinted AMS Press, New York, 1973) does refer to meetings between George Eliot, George Henry Lewes and Alfred Austin. G. H. Lewes the …

George Eliot And The British Museum Reading Room, Christopher Date

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I have recently undertaken a search of the Central Archives of the British Museum in an attempt to ascertain the date that George Eliot first used the facilities of the Reading Room of, what was then, the British Museum Library. It occurred to me that the George Eliot Fellowship might be interested in the result of my search.

It had been assumed that Eliot had been a reader here from the time of her move to London in 1851 when she became John Chapman's assistant editor on the Westminster Review. However, nothing had been found so far to verify this …

Fallen Women In The Nineteenth-Century Novel, Tom Winnifrith

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Focusing on the figure of the 'fallen woman' in nineteenth-century fiction, Tom Winnifred’s Fallen Women in the Nineteenth-Century Novel examines the sexual mores of fictional characters in the context of nineteenth-century sexual values generally, as well as in light of the personal conduct and reputations of authors who span the century. Winnifred looks sweepingly at the novels of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. A chapter is devoted to each of these authors, while Mrs. Henry Wood, the focus of the Introduction, serves throughout as a whipping girl and emblem of stereotypical …

Editor's Notes, Beryl Gray

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

After twelve years as its co-editor, Dr. Graham Handley has decided to resign from the Review. He has many exciting literary projects - George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anthony Trollope - which are going to occupy him full time, though I know that his continued interest and support are to be counted on.

Dr. Handley's commitment to, and work for, the Journal have been tremendous. We are very grateful to him. I was delighted to be asked to join him two years ago when Kathleen Adams's ever-increasing burden of work made it necessary for her to relinquish her role as …

The Real Life Of Mary Ann Evans: George Eliot, Her Letters And Fiction, Rosemarie Bodenheimer

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is an important biographical and critical study which takes for its starting point George Eliot's view in 1879 that 'The best history of a writer is contained in his writings - these are his chief actions' (The George Eliot Letters, VII, 230). Rosemarie Bodenheimer - who courageously ignores the current equalization stance of referring to Eliot and Evans - begins with an exemplary chapter, 'On Reading Letters'. She observes 'Letters and novels are both acts of self-representation in writing and, as such, may both be taken, to begin with, as fictions.' This is a neat and persuasive way in, …

The Sickroom In Victorian Fiction: The Art Of Being Ill, Miriam Bailin

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In this densely-argued and fascinating study Miriam Bailin begins by noting the frequency with which the sickroom figures in Victorian fiction as 'a haven of comfort, order and natural affection' in which an alternative, and more congenial, society is created around the invalid and the tormenting moral complexities of life outside, the difficulties of reconciling past and present selves, are simplified. In 'Janet's Repentance', a key text for Bailin, George Eliot writes: 'Within the four walls where the stir and glare of the world are shut out, where a human being lies prostrate, thrown on the tender mercies of his …

American Branch Report, Linda K. Roberston

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Linda Robertson has worked hard at getting a George Eliot session at the annual MLA Convention, so far without success. But she sends her usual report of a friendly gathering during the Conference which brings together members in the USA.

On December 29 several members of the Fellowship who were attending the Modem Language Association convention in Toronto met for dinner at Butterfield's Restaurant. Linda K. Robertson presided, and others in attendance were Shoshana M. Knapp, Joanna Yin, Nancy Henry, and Paul Lorenz.

George Eliot's Serial Fiction, Carol A. Martin

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In the past few years, there has been considerable renewed interest in serial literature in the form of single author and general studies. Martin's book on Eliot takes its place alongside works such as Mary Hamer's book on Trollope, Writing by Numbers (1987), Hughes's and Lund's The Victorian Serial (1991), and Harris's and Myers's (eds.) Serials and Their Readers (1993). Martin's study focuses on Eliot's four full-length serializations of Scenes of Clerical Life in Blackwood's Magazine, Romola in Cornhill Magazine, and Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda in part-issue, and provides a publishing and writing history of each. Her analysis uses Eliot's …

The Critical Response To George Eliot, Rosalind De Sailly, Karen L. Pangallo

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The appearance of a new anthology of George Eliot criticism would need to justify its place on the shelf beside the indispensable collections of essays assembled by Gordon S. Haight, D.R. Carroll, William Baker, Barbara Hardy and K.M. Newton. However, so much valuable and interesting Eliot criticism has been published in the past two decades that there is still room for a critical revaluation of this work. Karen Pangallo's George Eliot: A Reference Guide, 1972-1987 (Boston: G .K. Hall, 1990), is evidence of her knowledge in this area. However, the gap for a good selection of recent Eliot criticism is …

Annual Report- 1993, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The year's events began in a quite festive manner. Although the Annual General Meeting in March produced no special surprises, it was the 25th anniversary of my election as Fellowship Secretary so I provided cakes instead of the usual mundane biscuits and was presented with a lovely bouquet.

The AGM of the Alliance of Literary Societies followed on April 24th and the Fellowship, as always, was well represented. The John Clare Society were our hosts and we saw some excellent slides of the John Clare Country.

Gabriel Woolf and Rosalind Shanks gave us two splendid evenings of readings a few …

Tito, Dionysus And Apollo: An Examination Of Tito Melema In Romola, Lesley Gordon

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Greek myth is significant throughout George Eliot’s work, and is especially important in the characterization of Tito Melema. A particular identification with Dionysus or Bacchus begins early in the novel when Nello, after remarking that the newcomer seems to have come “straight from Olympus: (Ch. 2, 71), later finds that he resembles a young Bacchus or an Apollo (Ch. 4, 87). Further, the term “the stranger”, a common appellation of the god in the ancient world, where he was regarded as a foreigner from over the sea, comes when this stranger in Florence is frequently so called, often by the …

Day School On The Novels Of George Eliot At Birkbeck College, Ian Sutton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

A seminar on George Eliot's novels was held at Birkbeck College, London, on Saturday, November 13th, 1993. It was chaired by Laurel Brake, of the Extra-Mural Department of London University, and the speakers were Rosemary Ashton, Professor of English at University College, London, Sally Shuttleworth, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Leeds, and Gillian Beer, Professor of Literature and Narrative at the University of Cambridge.

Rosemary Ashton's paper, was 'The Mill on the Floss and Natural History', which drew interesting parallels between the novel and Darwin's Origin of Species. Ideas on the science of natural history,- evolution, survival …

Engaging With Shakespeare: Responses Of George Eliot And Other Women Novelists, Marianne Novy

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Virginia Woolf's comment, 'Literature is no one's private ground; literature is common ground', is a reminder in this age of intertextuality that writers have always lived off one another. Shakespeare himself was no exception. Marianne Novy's interest begins, however, with response rather than replication, and especially with the reasons why women novelists are drawn to Shakespeare. Unlike Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, the authors of The Madwoman in the Attic (1979), who portray male writers as essentially alienating to women, Novy shows how women who feel marginalized respond to Shakespeare the outsider, mourning his 'outcast state'; how women's need to …

George Eliot In South Africa, Margaret Wolfit

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In 1992 I made my first visit to South Africa. I had always wanted to see for myself what life Was like there and come to my own conclusions. It was an extraordinary time to visit. Mandela had been released from goal and a referendum of the whites was announced while we were there. The scene was changing - everywhere people seemed aware of the evils of apartheid, and that things must and would change. My invitation to give readings and speak about George Eliot came directly from that first visit, I was asked to give a course at the …

Message Of Greeting From The Fellowship President, Jonathan G. Ouvry

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

If every dog has its day, perhaps every novel has its year and if so this is the year of Middlemarch.

I looked forward to the television production with some misgivings, feeling that it would be impossible for the immense depth and scope of the novel to be adequately conveyed in a few hours of viewing. Adam Bede had been, I thought, entirely unsuccessful, except on a superficial level as a pretty costumed story. The profundity of Middlemarch would not benefit from such treatment. In the end, however, I felt that justice had to a large extent been done, due …

The Gladness Of The World: A Celebration Of George Eliot In Words And Music, Beryl Gray

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The Gladness of the World (the title is a quotation of the concluding words of George Eliot's religiously humanistic poem, 'O May I Join the Choir Invisible') was a wide-ranging, often moving, programme of readings of passages from George Eliot, and of music for mezzo-soprano, choir (and choir soloists), and solo instrumentalists.

The rich variety of Gabriel Woolf’s programme of readings in which he was joined by Canon Michael Sadgrove represented the extraordinary scope of the author's achievements, and succeeded both in conveying a sense of the development of her own life, and in bringing before the audience some of …

Wreath-Laying In The George Eliot Memorial Gardens Nuneaton, June 27th 1993, John Tounsend

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Mr. Chainman, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayoress, Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel particularly honoured by the invitation to address this distinguished annual gathering, not least because, nowadays at any rate, I have no pretensions to literary scholarship.

Twenty-five years ago I spent a lot of time studying 19th-century novelists. On just such an afternoon as today I sat with my contemporaries arguing the relative merits of these novelists. I have to say that even then George Eliot was not my favourite lady novelist: like any good Yorkshireman I was vociferous in my support of Emily and Charlotte Bronte. But soon after …

Review Of George Eliot: Ihr Leben, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In the epilogue to her life of George Eliot Elsemarie Maletzke pays tribute to the work of Gordon S. Haight and states that biographers who have come after him have found nothing really new to add beyond a more critical assessment of Eliot's person. The statement is true at least of this biography, which makes no claims to new findings and which follows Haight closely, often to the point of citing the same passages from letters or journals, while at the same time adopting an altogether less respectful and more critical attitude towards its subject. Where Haight reports without comment …

George Eliot To William Blackwood Iii: Two Unpublished Letters, David Finkelstein

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

George Eliot's business and personal relations with John Blackwood, head of the Edinburgh publishing firm William Blackwood & Sons from 1852-1879, have been well documented in Gordon Haight's detailed biographical study and his edition of her letters. On John's death in 1879, his nephew William Blackwood III took over the running of the firm, and continued maintaining close business and personal contact with George Eliot until her death on 22 December 1880. Two unpublished letters relating to the death of William' s brother George Frederick Blackwood, found in MS. 30,039 of the Blackwood files in the National Library of Scotland, …

Metaphor, Truth And The Mobile Imagination In The Mill On The Floss, John Rignall

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The relationship, and conflict, between brother and sister that lies at the heart of The Mill on the Floss involves not only important differences of character and gender, but also radically different modes of thought and expression. The contrast between narrow- minded Tom and large-souled Maggie is, among other things, a contrast between different forms of knowledge and different ways of using language. For Tom, with his 'conscious rectitude of purpose' and 'narrowness of imagination and intellect', 1 knowledge is unquestioning, unhesitating, and immune to doubt. No shadow of epistemological uncertainty dims the harsh light by which he sees and …

A Note On Hermione In Daniel Deronda, Derek Miller

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

After a paragraph in which the narrator sympathetically examines Rex's love for his cousin Gwendolen, the young people plan a tableau vivant at Offendene. Gwendolen rejects Rex's suggestion of himself as Achilles, with Gwendolen as Briseis, then agrees with his next idea that she should be Hermione as the statue, and he Leontes, from The Winter's Tale. During the playing of this scene, and provoked. perhaps. by the 'thunderous chord' (91)1 struck by Herr Klesmer on the piano. the panel on the wall opens to disclose what the family saw on the day of their moving in, 'the picture of …

The George Eliot Review: Journal Of The George Eliot Fellowship 1993 No. 24, Graham Handley, Beryl Gray

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Contents

Notes on Contributors......................... 5

Jonathan Ouvry: Message of Greeting from the Fellowship President............ 7

Kathleen Adams: Annual Report 1992................... 9

Graham Handley and Beryl Gray: London Branch Report 1992..................... 14

Linda Robertson: Wreath-laying at Westminster Abbey, June 20th 1992........... 16

Canon Michael Sadgrove: Wreath-laying in the George Eliot Memorial Gardens, Nuneaton, June 28th 1992.............. 20

Bernard Bergonzi: Oration for Kathleen Adams on the occasion of her Honorary Master of Arts degree award from the University of Warwick, July 16th 1992.............. 23

Ruth Harris: The Twenty-First George Eliot Memorial Lecture, October 17th 1992............. 25

The Twenty-Second George Eliot Memorial Lecture: George Eliot In The Letters Of George Henry Lewes, William Baker

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I am preparing an edition of the letters of G. H. Lewes.1 The edition is selective. It does not include those 722 G. H. Lewes items (letters, extracts from his journals and diaries) included in Gordon S. Haight's monumental The George Eliot Letters published in nine volumes by Yale University Press between 1954-55 and in 1978.2 My edition includes nearly 500 letters of which less than 50 have been previously published, making a just over 1,200 total of G. H. Lewes letters in print: a figure contrasting with upwards of 3,500 George Eliot letters in Haight's edition, less than 2,000 …

London Report 1993, Graham Handley, Beryl Gray

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is our farewell note as officers of the London Branch. We resigned in April, Michael Forrest our Secretary in March. We understand that the Fellowship Council has approved Elizabeth Gundrey's ideas for a number of events to be held in the future in the London area, and we hope that these will be well supported.

Martha Barclay To Issac Evans, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Martha Barclay (nee Jackson) was a school-fellow of George Eliot's in Coventry in the 1830's. It was Martha who initiated the choice of flower names for herself and her friend - Ivy (constancy) for herself and Clematis (mental beauty) for George Eliot. Letters from George Eliot to Martha have been published in Volume 1 of The George Eliot Letters edited by Gordon S. Haight (1954), but Martha had been pressed by John Cross to allow him to publish them in his biography. This she refused because she felt she could not trust George Eliot's widower to select satisfactorily. She planned …

Message Of Greeting From The Fellowship President, Jonathan G. Ouvry

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I write my annual greeting to members of the George Eliot Fellowship surrounded by inspiring objects. To my right not one, but two bronzes, John Letts's bust of George Eliot and his statue miniature, the latter next to a beautifully bound 1863 Tauchnitz copy of Romola Vol I (what happened to Vol 11 I wonder?) inscribed 'Blanche Southwood Lewes from her mother Florence, April 1892'. I first read Romola when on holiday, but unfortunately not in Florence, and found it hard to understand why it has acquired the reputation of being George Eliot's most difficult novel.