Literature in English, British Isles Commons^™

Address At Westminster Abbey Wreath-Laying

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

ROSEMARY MARTIN was our Guest of Honour. She had been invited because of her very sympathetic portrayal of Dolly Winthrop in the BBC Television film of 'Silas Marner' - a much loved character with a special place in George Eliot's novel.

After she had placed the Fellowship chaplet of laurel and white carnations on the Memorial Stone which had been unveiled exactly six years earlier by Gordon S. Haight, Miss Martin admitted that, prior to the invitation to play Dolly Winthrop in the film, she had read no George Eliot. She was interested in the part and then read 'Silas …

Speech At The Nuneaton Wreath-Laying, Len Struebig

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Almost twenty years ago, for the first time, I joined the small group of admirers who annually pay tribute to the memory of Nuneaton's famous daughter.

It is perhaps fitting that my last public duty, albeit as ex-Curator, should be connected with George Eliot. Over the years I have listened with interest to the various speakers, each with their own particular reason for being honoured with the responsibility for laying the Fellowship tribute.

I have heard Lewes and Evans descendants recount family memories handed down with pride. Last year we heard John Letts tell us of the close bond which …

Treasurer's Report 1985

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

You wiII see from the Statement that our finances are healthy despite high expenses last year. The loss of almost £94 on the Annual Readings was both unexpected and disappointing. For years we have benefited financially from Gabriel Woolf's Readings and we welcome his wiIIingness to come again this year, when we hope to be able to show our appreciation of his continued support. We are fortunate to have many generous members, whose help has been invaluable. We had a bequest of £ 100 from the late Mrs. Reeve and donations of £260. 67p.

Dr. Ezell continues, at his own …

The George Eliot Fellowship Review- 1986, Kathleen Adams, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

President's Message 6

Annual Report - 1985 7

Accounts - 1985 18

Treasurer's Report - 1985 19

George Eliot Memorial Lecture - 1985: George Eliot and G. H. Lewes: Their conception of literature as seen from the 1980's, by Michael Bell 20

Westminster Abbey Wreath-laying June 1985 27

George Eliot and the 1832 Election by Geoffrey D. M. Block 30

Book Reviews: Female Friendships Cl Communities - Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot Cl Elizabeth Gaskell by Pauline Nestor A Mid-Victorian Feminist, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon by Sheila R. Herstein George Eliot and Blackmail Alexander Welsh 38

The Clarendon Edition of by …

Annual Report 1985

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

With an awareness of something positive to do, the Fellowship entered 1985 with a feeling of optimism, and with our thoughts very much occupied with the George Eliot Statue Appeal. By the beginning of the year, and six months in from the launching of the appeal, we were more then halfway to our target, and a lot of work continued to go on to raise the rest of the money and to negotiate all that was necessary in connection with the erection of the statue. These negotiations continued throughout the year in conjunction with Nuneaton Borough Council. The Chief Executive …

Adam Bede And Riehl's "Social-Political-Conservatism", A.G. Van Den Broek

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

George Eliot's Adam Bede is seen frequently to be a good, but flawed novel, an interesting precursor to the much finer Middlemarch and other later novels. U. C. Knoepflmacher, in George Eliot's Early Novels: The Limits of Realism, considers that, essentially, Eliot shared John MiIton's purpose of justifying "Man's lot in the temporal world." Knoepflmacher adds: "Her own belief in scientific veracity did not allow her to create a supernatural world of essences; yet in her way she shared Milton's purpose. 11 But then he says:

The epic strain that was to find its most complex embodiment in Middlemarch is …

George Eliot Unveiled, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The excitement associated with the unveiling of John Letts' beautiful statue of George Eliot began for the four officers two days before the ceremony. On March 20th she travelled from the bronze casters in High Wycombe, somewhat ungracefully, on the back of a lorry! The plinth, all clean and bright, was ready and waiting, as was a very large crane, hired from Coventry, and causing a traffic warden slight concern as it was parked on double yellow lines; but, happily, she joined in the spirit of the day, and no parking ticket was issued. The press were there from the …

George Eliot And The 1832 Election, Geoffrey D.M. Block

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This article is an examination of some political aspects of George Eliot's Felix Holt.

The very first Iine of the first chapter of the novel makes it clear that the action takes place in 1832. This was the year of the Reform Act - the year too of the first general election to be held under the provisions of that Act. When she began writing her book in 1865-66 George Eliot did some painstaking research into the happenings and into the electoral practices of the 1832 election. (See her oft-quoted Journal and the Quarry usefully abstracted in the Clarendon edition …

Book Reviews: Female Friendships And Communities; A Mid-Victorian Feminist, Barabara Leigh Smith Bodichon; George Eliot And Blackmail, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Pauline Nestor's book traces the prominence, the emergence of women writers by the mid-nineteenth century, and the making of a community available to themselves. As she puts it, they were banding together, for 'women were no longer merely victims of the pen, but were wielding it themselves.' She comments particularly on Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte and the unifying power of maternity in her fiction. In the essays of the period there was a 'prolonged discussion of women's capacity for friendship'. Pauline Nestor is particularly strong on Mrs. Gaskell, tracing her modesty and grace, her ability to get on …

Octavia Hill And George Eliot- Coincidences, Margaret Wolfit

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

For a long time I have been performing two one-woman shows based on the Victorian novelist George Eliot - Firstly, "The Mill on the Floss", and later a biographical portrait of George Eliot herself. About three years ago, I began to feel that perhaps it was time to move on, and I searched around for another Victorian who might be of interest. One of the names that came to mind was that of Octavia Hill. As it happened, I had confused her with someone else, and when I came to research, discovered that I really knew nothing at all about …

Obituary: Gordon S. Haight, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Admirers of George Eliot owe an immense debt to Gordon S. Haight for his work on George Eliot, her life and her works. No-one studying the Nuneatonborn novelist can afford to miss the nine volumes of her letters which came out over a period of 24 years, edited by Haight, and yet it was aImost by chance that he became so involved that the letters grew into a life's work. In 1933 he joined Yale University where he had graduated ten years earlier. That same year he became interested in the collection of George Eliot letters at Yale and set …

Obituary 2: Gordon Haight, Margaret Wolfit

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In the spring of 1972 when I was making plans to take my one woman version of “The Mill of the Floss” to the Edinburgh Festival fringe I plucked up courage and wrote a letter to Gordon Haight asking his help with some programme notes. I had, of course, read and greatly admired his definitive biography of George Eliot, but I had never met him. Some weeks later I received a telephone call from him. He told me he was in London, he didn’t know how he could help m but suggested that I might like to see him at …

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

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

That this last year has been of particular significance in the life of the Fellowship needs no emphasis from me. NewsIetters throughout the year, and reports in this Review, will have informed those members who for reasons of distance or otherwise have not been able to take part, that much of note has happened.

I have had the greatest pleasure, in every case with my wife Marjorie, in taking part in some of the events of the year, culminating in the unveiling on the 22nd March of what is, without doubt, a most worthy memorial to George Eliot in the …

What Is A Pole Doing In Middlemarch?, David Malcolm

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

“’ His name is Ladislaw. He is said to be of foreign extraction.’

“’ I know the sort,’ said Mr. Hawley; ‘some emissary. He’ll begin with flourish about the Rights of Man and end with murdering a wench. That’s the style.’”

The first shock in Poland for a native Enlgish- speaking reader of Middlemarch is to discover that Will Lnadislaw’s surname should probably be Wladyslaw, and be pronounced /vwa:disqa:v/. Subsequently, a heightened awareness of Polish history suggests that the Polish aspect of the character of Will and his role within Middlemarch may be a fruitful object of study.

The following …

The Identity Of Klesmer In Daniel Deronda, Rupert Christiansen

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The identification of a source for Julius Klesmer, the expatriate pianist-composer in Daniel Deronda, has long provided a mild tease for readers and scholars. In 1885 Lord Acton pronounced him 'the embodiment of Liszt, in the knowledge that George Eliot and Lewes had met the great virtuoso during their visit to Weimar in 1854-5. Broadly, the parallels between the two are obvious, and the matching generally held until in 1968 the late Gordon Haight published an essay in Imagined Worlds (ed. Maynard Mack), which made a strong case for the Russian Jew Anton Rubinstein, another Weimar acquaintance, who shared Klesmer's …

Respond To The Speech At The Unveiling Of George Eliot Statue, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The George Eliot Fellowship feels a great sense of achievement today, for. after two years of work and effort, we now have George Eliot in the heart of 'Milby' - the name she chose for Nuneaton. We are proud to have played so Iarge a part in having this fine memorial statue erected as a token of our admiration of a great but warm and human woman. What she would have thought of the statue we have no way of knowing. But, although she was a diffident person, I Iike to think she would have been warmed and touched that …

Speech At The Unveiling Of George Eliot Statue, Jonathan Ouvry

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Putting up a statue has been, for some two or three thousand years, a favourite way of keeping alive the memory of a person worthy to be remembered. Whatever the reason, it must be the case that only the most exceptional talents are now memorialised in this way. It must, I think, be particularly exceptional for the subject of a statue to be female; I mean, of course, a statue as a memorial - in terms of pure art statuary must almost invariably be female. Leaving aside Greek goddesses, Queen Victoria and, looking a little to the south, Lady Godiva, …

Book Review: The Clarendon Edition Of Scenes Of Clerical Life, Kathleen Porter

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The editor's Introduction to an author's first work of fiction published in a new edition is of very special interest, since it is concerned with the foundations of a writer's art. The story of the transformation of Marian Lewes, nee Mary Ann Evans, into George Eliot is well known, and she has never appeared more charming than in her own account of how she came to write fiction. Thomas A. Noble's Introduction quotes freely from George Eliot's Autograph Journal and from letters, bringing vividly to life the new author of fiction and her generous publisher, John Blackwood. She was already …

Book Review: Silas Marner- Not Quite A "Common Ol' Workin' Man", Kathleen Porter

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

To compile a programme of Readings about 'the curse of the drinking classes' (Oscar Wilde) which is both· satisfying and moving, requires some diligence and industry. This belies Gabriel Woo If's statement, as he introduced himself to his audience, that, apart from two whole weeks in an office, he had spent his life not doing a day's work, in Mr. Lawrence senior's sense of the word. As a matter of fact, we were moved, in a most satisfying way, sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears, by passages read with such feeling that it was hard to believe that our reader …

At The Grave Of George Eliot, Amy Clampitt

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Laid in unconsecrated Eround, a scandal

still-note how good Gerard Hopkins

recoiled from what a queer, awkward girl,

frail-shouldered, massive, rickety,

volcanic" out of an unconsecrated

attachment, a marriage that was

no marriage (one would have added,

till opprobrium intervened, but

something better), to a pockmarked

lightweight of a drama critic, saw blossom:

this domestic improbability, this

moonftower. They were happy.

Happiness: that-as it always has been-was

the scandal. As for the unembarrassed

pursuit of same, run giddily

amok, by now, among the lit-up

purlieus of a game show (died

of a conniption, beaming), time

spared her that, though not …

Annual Report- 1986

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

1986 was undoubtedly the Year of the Statue and the erection and unveiling in March was the highlight of our work in promoting and honouring George Eliot. A full report appeared in the 1986 Review and it is not necessary to include any more in this report, except to say that, after all the public ceremony of the day before, the Fellowship met at the George Eliot Hotel on Sunday, March 23rd for a Celebration Luncheon. This was informal and extremely pleasant, and it proved to be a real 'family' affair. Jonathan and Marjorie Ouvry stayed over to be with …

The Fifteenth George Eliot Memorial Lecture- 1986, Loius Marks

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

To make a film of such a well-loved classic book as Silas Marner could be called a calculated risk. To venture into the home territory of George Eliot and talk about it to an audience of experts in the subject seems frankly foolhardy. So, while expressing my gratitude to the George Eliot Fellowship for inviting me to address you, I cannot deny that my awareness of the great honour you do me is mixed with more than a dash of trepidation.

First let me say that I do not think I have anything profound to add to the perennial debate …

George Eliot And American Films, George V. Griffith

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

To Kathleen Adams t discussion of George Eliot film adaptations (Review, 1977), I would Iike to add two interesting items omitted and a few comments. Other than that piece and a few brief remarks about George Eliot theatrical adaptations in a column in the London Illustrated News (Mar. 5, 1927), nothing has been written about Eliot on stage and screen. The subject deserves more treatment.

The silent era of filmmaking in America coincided with a period in American culture when English "classics lt possessed a certain cachet that made them good properties for an entertainment industry with aspirations to something …

Address By Margaret Wolfit, Margaret Wolfit

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

'The Quiet Conquest' is the title of the Huguenot exhibition celebrating Huguenot Heritage Year - 300 years since the revoking of the Edict of Nantes - currently showing at the London Museum.

The origins and earliest application of the term Huguenot, we are told, have always been and remain somewhat obscure. The word may derive from 'Eidgenoss', meaning confederal, a word used in Geneva where John Calvin and many Huguenots settled. Other explanations for the word belong to the world of myths - a 16th century Catholic apologist, for example, apparently suggested that John Calvin nightly summoned a devil named …

An Evening With Steve Race

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Take a mixture of gentle humour, superb professionalism, excellent timing and a love of music of many a Music' programme has been a much loved public figure for many years, but if his audience at the Arts Centre were expecting the same pleasant, relaxed man on stage, they were probably delighted to discover that he is even more pleasant and more relaxed than they had anticipated. From the moment he arrived on stage until he left it, he had his audience in the palm of his hand. They reacted instantly to him, and the pleasure this gave to him probably …

Book Review: "A Delicious Effervescence Of The Mind", Gabriel Woolf, Rosalind Shanks

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

"A delicious effervescence of the mind"? It is not a quality that one immediately associates with George Eliot, whose name and countenance promise more of the sturdier attributes and less of the "fizz". Yet in a brilliant recital by Gabriel Wooir and Rosalind Shanks, many sparkling bubbles of wit sprang to life. Her love of jokes was recalled from books she laughed over in childhood, and the lively amusement she gleaned from the foibles of folk emerged from the perhaps unlikely pages of "Janet's Repentance". Bartle Massey from Adam Bede was not unexpected, but less predictable was the quick, dry …

Treasurer's Report- 1984

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The Statement of Accounts for 1984 is quite straightforward and little comment is needed. Although 'we had fewer members, with the result that income from subscriptions was less than in the previous year, we were much encouraged to receive donations of £96.47p. We are grateful to the Life Members who, having joined the Fellowship when subscriptions were low, have now made extra payments. We hope this is an indication of approval of what we are doing and we welcome their generous help.

Profits on most of our activities were satisfactory, especially on Gabriel Woolf's Readings, without which our finances would …

Book Review: Selections From George Eliot's Letters, Leon Drucker

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is a most welcome and meticulous distillation of Dr. Haight's The George Eliot Letters in nine volumes, which in this age of the video cassette will be inaccessible even in many good reference libraries. My only reservation about the editing of this very readable book of some 650 letters in 560 pages is that the letters themselves are not numbered. I certainly commend the informative headnotes above each letter, though sometimes the longer the letter, the briefer the note, which proves that Dr. Haight is never one to obtrude between himself and his heroine.

The first sentence of the …

Dani El Deronda : George Eliot's "Negro Novel", John Stott

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Daniel Deronda, G.H. Lewes once rather ingenuously explained, was "all about English ladies and gentlemen with the scene laid in Wiltshire" (Letters 6:136)² ... and although the novel is evidently "about" far more than that, Lewes' words are a useful reminder that Deronda gains his entree to the world of the novel as a gentleman, the ward of Sir Hugo Mallinger, and not as a political figure: a believer in a Palestinian homeland for the Jews. I t is necessary for the novel that he believe in something, of course; as R. T. Jones has commented, "In order to …

Annual Report - 1984

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

1984 was an exciting year because of the challenge of the George Eliot Statue. Since 1980 the Fellowship Council had felt we were a little in the doldrums. After the interesting years leading up to the centenary of George Eliot's death, and the thrill of finally unveiling the Westminster Abbey Memorial Stone, everything seemed very flat. With no more big anniversaries until 2019, we might be forgiven for feeling that there was nothing much to do. But then, when the centre of Nuneaton was being pedestrianised with its attractive Victorian theme, and the Borough Council suggested making a site available …