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Review Of A George Eliot Chronology, Graham Handley, Timothy Hands

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

On the face of it this is a much needed book, and certainly it makes a considerable contribution in a portable way to our ease of reference when we want to look up something in George Eliot's life or writing. But I am doubtful about the method used here of incorporating into the chronology historical or other facts. For example, on the first page (which covers the years 1819-27 in George Eliot's life) we find entries which say: 1821 (29 Jan) Death of George Ill. Accession of George IV (Regent since 1811): (17 Aug) Death of Queen Caroline. 1824 (19 …

Wreath Laying In The George Memorial Gardens, Nuneaton On June 12th 1988, When The Guest Of Honour Was John Burton, Chairman Of Bedworth Society, John Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In the short time at my disposal I would like to talk briefly about four aspects of my interest in George Eliot and this area, from the standpoint of my position as chairman of The Bedworth Society. The four are the buildings in Bedworth; the buildings associated with George Eliot, especially Coton Free School; future developments for local societies like ours; and the need for integrity in all we do.

To start then, with buildings in Bedworth. As a preliminary to deciding what I would say today, I was making a mental list of the buildings still existing in Bedworth …

Literature Crossword, William Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

CLUES ACROSS

1 Novel subtitled 'A Study of Provincial Ufe' (11)

6 'Rare' Mr Jonson (3)

9 George - - - -, sixth Baron Byron (6)

11 lane - - - - - , by 'Currer 26 across' (4)

12 In ------A.H.H., by Tennyson (8)

13 'Remembrance of things - - - - - " Shakespearian quotation used as the English translation of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (4)

14 Surname of David Copperfield's aunt (8)

17 Miss Durbeyfield (4)

18 'Humble' Dickensian villain (4)

21 First name of 'the Boy who wouldn't grow up' (5)

22 One …

Review Of With Great Pleasure, Gabriel Woolf

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Well, Gabriel, you have completed the first twenty that 'will not come again'. It gives us great pleasure to say "thank you", on behalf of the George Eliot Fellowship, for all you have done for us. After twenty years we regard you as one of the family. Your regular visits have given many people a great deal of enjoyment, and you have garnished and enriched the Fellowship besides.

Your latest programme was received with great pleasure by all who heard it. Its form was intriguing: Inspiration, First Effort, Love up North, Music and Children's Hour. Was it biographical, autobiographical, or …

The George Eliot Fellowship Review 1989, Kathleen Adams, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

CONTENTS -1989

President's Message........................ 1

Annual Report - 1988 2 Accounts - 1988......................... 7

Treasurer's Report - 1988............................ 8

George Eliot Memorial Lecture - 1988: George Eliot and Marriage by Graham Handley................... 10

Westminster Abbey Wreath-laying - 1988....................... 12

Sacred and Secular: George Eliot's Concept of Pilgrimage by M.loan Chard.............. 14

Nuneaton Wreath-laying - 1988.................... 18

Book Reviews: World's Classics Series: Middlemarch ed .. by David Carroll.................... 20

Scenes of Clerical Life ed. by Thomas A. Noble..................... 22

Romola on the American Stage by George V.Griffith.................... 23

Book Review: Victorian Britain - An Encyclopedia............................. 28

Literature Crossword..................... 29

How, Twenty …

Chaucer And George Eliot, George Schlesinger

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I was interested to read David Ball's article on "Triangular Patterns in Middlemarch" (Review No. 19, 1988) with its reference to farcical triangle situations. I have been wondering about similarities and connections between Chaucer and George Eliot - Middlemarch (and Daniel Deronda) as almost Eliot's answer to Chaucer's ''Marriage Group" of tales. The most concentrated and specific link seemed to be between the Merchant's Tale and the Casaubon-Dorothea - Will triangle. Given Eliot's interest in Chaucer (there are four Chaucer epigraphs in Middlemarch, three from comic contexts including one from the Wife's Prologue (ch.lxv) and one from the climax of …

George Eliots's Epigraphs: A Note, R.J. Owens

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

George Eliot followed the conventions of her time in titling her novels either after their hero or heroine or the setting where the action takes place. Later she began to give titles to each chapter, or to the individual "Books" which made up the complete novel, or to both. Since the titular hero was sometimes not the only or the main centre of interest in the novel, for example in Felix Holt or Daniel Deronda, the practice of giving titles to "Books" helped, in the usual circumstances of nineteenth century publishing, to point the reader's attention to the appropriate aspect …

Review Of Virago Classics: Brother Jacob, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Brother Jacob, like The Lifted Veil, has always been in the shadow of George Eliot's longer and better known fiction, but Beryl Gray's afterword in this Virago edition brings it into the light. She offers interesting suggestions why the story was written after The Mill on the Floss and before Silas Marner, showing that the rhythms of George Eliot's creative life are revealing.

Our attention is drawn to those critics who have spoken disparagingly of the story, 'rather cheerless and austere' (U.C. Knoepflmacher), 'cynical and coldly sarcastic' (G. S. Haight) and 'that tedious tale' (W. J. Harvey). Those of us …

Review Of The World's Classics Series: Scenes Of Clerical Life, Hilda Gunn, Thomas A. Noble

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This edition of George Eliot's first fiction reproduces the text of the much acclaimed Clarendon Edition which is also edited by Thomas S. Noble. It is an excellent edition for a student because, besides being so reasonably priced, it contains a most concise chronology of George Eliot and explanatory notes which have been researched with great thoroughness.

In the Introduction, Thomas A. Noble stresses that George Eliot, as one-time editor of The Westminster Review. had been used to reviewing contemporary literature. She had, therefore, a very clear view of what she wished to accomplish as a novelist. She was convinced …

The Seventeenth George Eliot Memorial Lecture: George Eliot And Marriage, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Marian Evans and George Henry Lewes began to live together in July 1854, and her letters to friends and to her brother lsaac later show how seriously she regarded their relationship. As far as she was concerned it was permanent, a marriage of true minds and hearts. As she put it, 'Light and easily broken ties are what I neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically. Women who are satisfied with such ties do not act as I have done. They obtain what they desire and are still invited to dinner. 'In her letter to lsaac she refers to …

George Eliot: From Middlemarch To Manhattan, Catherine Civello

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Female novelists in this century from de Beauvoir to Drabble have acknowledged the contribution of the Victorian George Eliot. In Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. for instance, Simone de Beauvoir reports that, during her school days, she tried to conceal her reading of Adam Bede from her mother because of the novel's character Hetty Sorrel, pregnant out of wedlock (11). The Mill on the Floss held the -future French feminist in its spell for many reasons:

I read a-novel which seemed to me to translate my spiritual exile into words: George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss made an even …

George Eliot Birthday Luncheon: The Toast To The Immortal Memory, Margaret Wolfit

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In May 1869 George Eliot received what she described as "a really noble letter from the American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe full of admiration of Silas Marner The Mill on the Floss and Adam Bede" and although they never met, there seems to have been some deep affinity of feeling between these two eminent women that drew them closely together in spite of diversity of intellectual tastes.

In reply to that first letter George Eliot wrote; - "Letters are necessarily narrow and fragmentary, and when one writes on wide subjects, are likely to create more misunderstanding than illumination. But I …

Westminster Abbey Wreath-Laying- June 18th 1988, Jennifer Uglow

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In June 1856 George and Marian Lewes (for it would not yet be right to call her 'George Eliot') were staying in North Devon. While George was collecting specimens on the beach, Marian was preoccupied with work for the Westminster Review, her 'Belles Letters' column and her famous article on W. H. Riehl, 'The Natural History of German Life', which, she wrote, 'I worked at considerably a contretemps, despairing of its ever being worth anything', But by this day, the 18th June, she was enjoying a splendid sense of freedom and a desire to turn to a different world, as …

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

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Having been intrigued by the puzzle on P. 87 of the previous edition of the Review my mind has turned to anagrams (perhaps the Review should have a crossword puzzle - I enjoy a crossword puzzle!) but without any great success. Trying "George Eliot" produces various unpromising words like "tiger" and "girl", but nothing very relevant. If only there were an "n" Eng. Lit. would appear quite satisfactory.

Turning to the name Adams, again I find nothing very relevant. Kathleen is surely not "sad" about the undertaking she embarked on more than 20 years ago, though she may feel she …

To Educate Or Not To Educate: Patterns For Women In George Eliot's Novels, Linda K. Robertson

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Throughout her novels, George Eliot points out the deplorable state of education for women in the nineteenth century and the effects that poor education has upon the individual. Only limited schooling, if any, was available to girls whose parents could not afford to pay substantial sums, and too much schooling for girls was commonly viewed as unnecessary and even dangerous. In addition, schools generally spent a large proportion of their time teaching various "accomplishments" and very little on more academic subjects. Characters in most of Eliot's novels reflect common perceptions on education for women and illustrate the undesirable results of …

Triangular Patterns In Middlemarch, David Ball

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

There has been no lack of awareness in modern criticism of the complexities and surprises of George Eliot's careful structuring of Middlemarch, particularly when it is presented in terms of duality. I will quote here only one very representative example, from W.}. Harvey's introduction to the Penguin edition of the novel:

It is not difficult to discern the pattern of this network (of parallels and contrasts). The contrast between Rosamond and Mary Garth, or between Rosamond and Dorothea; the combined parallel and contrast between the researches of Casaubon and Lydgate (both of them searching for a "key"); the way in …

Review Of The Prison Of Womanhood. Four Provincial In Nineteenth Century Fiction., Elizabeth Jane Macmillian

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is an interesting but relatively obvious analysis of four female characters of major significance in 19th century fiction. Miss Sabiston is seeking to establish whether or not there is a 'feminine creative sensibility'. She notes the heroines' similarities, and as her analysis deepens, she maintains comparison and perspective by cross-reference. Thus Emma Bovary requires change of location for her romance, whereas Emma is manifestly tied by duty to her own area and rejects any idea of moving away. The sections devoted to Dorothea Brooke advance what seems to me to be very obvious arguments. The chapter, as with the …

The George Eliot Fellowship Review 1988 No. 19, Kathleen Adams, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Contents- 1988

President's Message 1

Annual Report-1987 2

Accounts- 1987 8

Treasurer's Report-1987 9

George Eliot Memorial Lecture-1987: The Seduction of Maggie Tulliver by Dr. Beryl Gray 10

Westminster Abbey Wreath-laying-1987 18

Trinagular Patterns in MIddlemarch by David Ball 23

Book Reviews: 26

World's Classics Series: 26

Felix Holt ed. by Fred C. Thomson 26

Daniel Deronda ed. by Graham Handley 26

To Educate or not to Educate: Patterns for Women in George Eliot's novels by Linda K. Robertson 28

George Eliot at Southfields by Pat Bailey 32

Silas Marner: George Eliot and Mme Le Prince de Beaumont by Terence …

Book Review Of Intellectual Women, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This is a very well documented and impressive study of Harriet Martineau, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot. It is more than that: it is directly inspirational, stimulating one to re-read and re-assess in the light of Miss David's analyses. There are glancing but important references to Ruskin and the significance of his 'Of Queens' Gardens', his views being 'the essence of patriarchal thought'. There is the weighted idea that 'education disfigures -and makes it difficult for girls to find husbands.' But it is when Deirdre David gets down to the individual writers under examination that her insight and sympathy …

Book Review: George Eliot: The Jewish Connection, Kathleen Porter, Ruth Levitt

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

George Eliot: The Jewish Connection, published in Israel in 1975, has recently come to our attention for review. Ruth Levitt, who lives in Israel, had read and admired Daniel Deronda, and was encouraged by George Eliot's sympathetic treatment of the Jewish characters in the novel, to attempt to show that Theodore Herzl, one of the founders of modern Zionism, was himself inspired by the fictional Daniel Deronda. As Mrs. Levitt tells us in her Preface, the attempt failed, and for this reason the effect of her book is diminished.

Undaunted, the author persevered with a modified theme, convinced that George …

Review Of The Warwichshire Pen, Gabriel Woolf

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Being born in Warwickshire, it seems, confers distinction upon those who write. I can make this statement without giving myself airs, since I was born in another county, and, according to Gabriel Woolf, merely to dwell in Warwickshire is no guarantee of excellence.

Shaking the local dust from his feet with a grand dramatic gesture, so to speak, Gabriel Woolf began his programme with extracts from Henry V on "the vastly fields of France", whither we had been puffed by the breath of Shakespeare's contemporary, Michael Dray ton. Back in Warwickshire, a contrast followed from the early pen of George …

Obituary- Siggers

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

We were sorry to hear of the death on March 9th. of Dr. Siggers who had been a life member of the Fellowship since 1971.

If you have the good fortune to live in a house once occupied by George Eliot, it is natural that an interest in the novelist will develop. This happened with Dr. Siggers, for his home in Devizes was the scene of Mary Ann Evans' visit in 1843 to the home of Dr. Robert Brabant. Her holiday lasted a month; it might have been longer if her relationship with her host, nearly forty years her senior, …

Review Of Daniel Deronda

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In writing of this edition of my favourite of George Eliot's novels edited by Graham Handley, a man to whom the George Eliot Fellowship owes so much and for whom we feel a particular warmth for his exceptional work as one of the two leaders of our Study Group and as one of the Review's two editors

We are told of her meticulous research into the legal aspects of the story and of the places she visited where she was to set her scenes. Dr. Handley also reminds us of the times in which the novel was written and of …

Treasurer's Report- 1987

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

During the course of this my first year as Treasurer of the George Eliot Fellowship, I sometimes found myself wondering how I came to be doing this job. Our Chairman, Bill Adams, reminded me at the Birthday Luncheon. He said that I had been "wooed by soft words".

This is quite true. One thing that Kathleen has in common with George Eliot is a beautiful voice and that voice "wooed" me into undertaking the Treasurer's post.

It had not occurred to me to look at the books of the retiring Treasurer to see what was involved before agreeing to take …

Letters To The Editors - 1988

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

In the 1987 Review an article was published entitled TO PRAY OR NOT TO PRAY. It was an answer from the Fellowship to those who criticised us for indulging in religious practice from time to time - something they regard as being unacceptable to George Eliot. In response to the article, a letter was received from The Venerable Michael Mansbridge, Chaplain and Archdeacon to The Gulf. Michael was a one-time President of the Fellowship during the years when he was Vicar of Chilvers Coton (‘Shepperton') and Astley (‘Knebley') Churches. Writing from Baghdad, and sending good wishes to the Fellowship, he …

Maggie's Sisters: Feminist Readings Of The Mill On The Floss, Oliver Lovesey

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The view that Eliot presented her female characters with only very limited possibilities for self-realization in either marriage or martyrdom, and that Eliot herself '1ived" but did not "write" the "revolution" is one that has dominated the feminist assessment of George Eliot. This tradition regards Eliot as an author who served unintentionally to bolster a reactionary, phallocentric ethos. Further, Eliot is suspect as she has been, particularly since F. R. Leavis gave her prominence in The Great Tradition a part of the accepted literary canon. Nevertheless, as Elaine Showalter, for example, has pointed out in "The Greening of Sister George," …

Review Of The Leavises On Fiction: An Historic Partnership, Bill Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Trying to follow the polemics of literary criticism is rather like trying to understand the progress of an aerial battle from the ground. One is aware of much noise and the incomprehensible twistings of the vapour trails of argument. However, anyone having the least interest in English literature cannot fail to have heard of the battling Leavises, or indeed, to recognise the spare features and uncompromising expressions of both spouses.

It was this vague layman's interest which led me to open Dr. Robertson's book, with the thought - how can anyone looking as pugnacious as F.R. Leavis have the delicacy …

Silas Marner: George Eliot And Mme Le Prince De Beaumont, Terence Dawson

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

At the beginning of chapter 15 of Silas Marner (1861), there is a reference to a well-known fairy tale. The paragraph is as follows:

That famous ring that pricked its owner when he forgot duty and followed desire - - I wonder if it pricked very hard when he set out on the chase, or whether it pricked but lightly then, and only pierced to the quick when the chase had long been ended, and hope, folding her wings, looked backward and became regret? (Penguin ed., p. 191)

Joseph Wiesenfarth has identified the fairy tale as 'Prince Darling.' He quotes …

The George Eliot Fellowship Statement Of According For The Year Ending 31st December 1988

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

1988 P&L Statement and Balance sheet

Review Of The World's Classics Series: Felix Holt, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

If one cannot afford the splendid Clarendon Editions of George Eliot's novels. the World's Classics editions are a very good second best. They are second -best, however, only in their format, since the text of the novels is the same. For the finer quality, hardback of the Clarendon is substituted a well-produced and clear paperback with an attractive cover.

Fred C.Thomson's Introduction to Felix Holt, the Radical tells us that, despite its title, this is not a political novel as the genre is ordinarily understood. George Eliot is not telling us the story of a career politician, nor does she …