The George Eliot Letters (Yale Edition of the George Eliot Letters)

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George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings and Philosophy

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George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings and Philosophy

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Thanks, Kathryn
the basic essentials you need to know on Eliot are in this book
Fine basic biography on the life of this essential writer
Workmanlike Bio
Scrutinizes the Victorian society that Mary Evans lived in

George Eliot: The Last Victorian
Kathryn Hughes
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus & Giroux
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0374161380

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From Gordon Haight's scrupulous 1968 work George Eliot through Ruby Redinger's 1976 feminist rethinking George Eliot: The Emergent Self and beyond, the unconventional life and probing fiction of Victorian England's loftiest female author has attracted the scrutiny of numerous biographers. British scholar Kathryn Hughes's pungent account distinguishes itself by limning Mary Ann Evans's turbulent emotions with as much acuity as she does the creative drive that eventually led one of London's most prominent editors and critics to reinvent herself as the novelist George Eliot. Cast out of respectable public life when she moved in with the married George Henry Lewes, Eliot found personal happiness with a man who understood her need for all-consuming love and artistic salvation. Lewes demonstrated his dedication to her by screening Eliot from outside criticism and inner doubts that could have prevented her from writing. Hughes's analysis of their relationship is as sympathetic yet candid as the rest of her narrative. She paints a vivid portrait of Victorian intellectual life and Eliot's provocative role within it as a writer who questioned conventional wisdom of all sorts, but whose heroines ultimately chose lives of modest usefulness within the existing society. As her biographer puts it in a typically well turned phrase, "Eliot's novels show people how they can deal with the pain of being a Victorian by remaining one." --Wendy Smith

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A major new biography of a great english writer who has particular relevance for our own age.

For the sheer breadth of experience embodied in her life and work, George Eliot presents an ever alluring subject for biographers. The daughter of one of the new breed of self-made businessmen, she had a scandalous liaison with the married writer and editor George Henry Lewes that made an outcast of her until literary fame overcame "polite" scruples. Unparalleled among the great English novelists for her understanding of the important intellectual and political debates of her day, she nonetheless maintained a fervent attachment to the pragmatic middle ground, where idealism is tempered by love, habit, and history. It is no wonder that many a previous biographer has foundered in the face of so much richness and complexity, producing lopsided or not entirely coherent portraits of the writer.

Kathryn Hughes's sympathetic, human, and immensely readable biography provides a truly nuanced view of Eliot, and is the first to grapple equally with the personal dramas that shaped her psyche-particularly her rejection by her brother Isaac-and her social and intellectual context. Hughes shows how these elements together forged the themes of Eliot's work, her insistence that ideological interests be subordinated to the bonds between human beings-a message that has keen resonance in our own uneasy time.

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Thanks, Kathryn.......2005-08-22

I have started to read a lot of biographies, and somehow most of the authors manage to extinguish my passionate interest in the lives of the greats by a tedious writing style. Kathryn Hughes' book George Eliot: The Last Victorian is innocent of such charges. In fact, the book is both eruditely scholarly and reads like an exciting novel. I hope Kathryn Hughes writes more biographies.

the basic essentials you need to know on Eliot are in this book.......2005-07-22

Whata complex person was George Eliot (1819-1880). Mary Ann
was born in the English midlands in a rural, conservative and
evangelical society. She became an agnostic, free thinker whose
brilliant early works were translations of German scholarship dealing with a critical examination of the life of Jesus.
Eliot had a succesion of love affairs which such literary types as John Chapman editor of the Westminster Review and the
brillian but cold Herbert Spencer. Her true love was George
Henry Lewes a literary man who never divorced his unfaithful wife Agnes continuing to support her and his children through the long years he spent living with Eliot.
With the encouragement, nurturing care and support of Lewes the fragile, tempermental, moody and gloomy plain girl from the Midlands became the leading light in the intellectual-literary world of mid 19th century London.
Eliot is in the first rank of Victorian novelists. Her classics include "Adam Bede"; "The Mill on the Floss"; "Silas
Marner"; "Felix Holt the Radical': "The Spanish Gypsy"; "Romola"
"Middlemarch" and "Daniel Deronda.:
Eliot was a brilliant woman who all of her life was concerned about her plain appearance. She married young John Cross in 1880
dying only eight months into the marriage.
Hughes gives a plainly written account of Mary Ann's life from the provincial girl to the grand old lady of English letters.
Her life was sad since her brother Isaac and family refused to accept her arrangement of living with a married man. She was
scorned as a fallen woman by polite society but found a modicum of happiness with Lewes.
Huges provides short adequate summaries of all the novels and poems by Eliot. Some readers may find the infighting among family members and literary people in London tedious.
Hughes had done her homework producing a solid biography.

Fine basic biography on the life of this essential writer.......2004-10-23

Though the book was overall a bit biased toward Eliot's needy side, and didn't include quite enough literary criticism for my taste, I still found this a great and very informative read, especially for those with not a lot of background on the subject of this major Victorian writer.

Workmanlike Bio.......2003-01-26

Hughes' life of Eliot is solid, comprehensive, and given its dazzling subject, remarkably tedious. The book provides an ample chronicle of Eliot's documented life without ever bringing Marian Evans or her marvelous writings to life.

Hughes is much better at piling on the details of Victorian intellectual life than working her way inside the creative processes that created Middlemarch, Adam Bede, and Daniel Deronda. The first half of the book, covering Evans' family life and difficult early adulthood, reads well, the impressive accumulation of research making up for lack of narrative.

But when Evans creates Eliot and the first of her fictions, the book should snap to life. It instead deflates, dutifully cranking out novel synopses and recounting scandals without ever getting at why Eliot's fiction was so beloved in her day, and remains so today.

A novelist of uncanny power and tremendous influence, Eliot deserves a biography at the level of Peter Ackroyd's spectacular life of Dickens. We're still waiting...

Scrutinizes the Victorian society that Mary Evans lived in.......2001-09-12

George Eliot: The Last Victorian is an intimate biography of noted author Mary Ann Evans, who is perhaps better known by the pen name of George Eliot (1819-1880). Some of Ms. Evans' most famous works include the novels Silas Marner, Middlemarch, and Adam Bede. This informative biography focuses quite closely on Evans' life, including her friendships with Dickens and Trollope, and the controversial scandal of her relationship to a married writer George Henry Lewes. Biographer Kathryn Hughes also scrutinizes the Victorian society that Mary Evans lived in and wrote so much about. Even Queen Victoria enjoyed books by George Eliot, but you don't need royal blood to enjoy this intriguing and meticulously presented biography.

George Eliot and Intoxication: Dangerous Drugs for the Condition of England

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George Eliot and Intoxication: Dangerous Drugs for the Condition of England
Kathleen McCormack
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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Binding: Hardcover

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Throughout George Eliot's fiction, not only do a remarkable number of her characters act under the influence of unwise consumption of alcohol and opium, but these drugs also recur often as metaphors and allusions. Together, they create an extensive pattern of drug/disease references that represent sociopolitical problems as diseases in a social body and solutions to those problems (especially solutions that depend on some kind of written language) as volatile remedies that retain the potential to either kill or cure.

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George Eliot
Leslie Stephen
Manufacturer: Ams Pr Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Strauss' Life of Jesus from George Eliot: The Life of Jesus VOLUME 2

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Strauss is my Hero of Christion Scholarship
Insight into two great lives: George Eliot and D.F. Strauss

Strauss' Life of Jesus from George Eliot: The Life of Jesus VOLUME 2
David Friedrich Strauss
Manufacturer: Gloger Family Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1878632582

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Strauss is my Hero of Christion Scholarship.......1999-12-05

My Hero of Christian Theolgy

I have read many books about Bible and Jesus ranging from missionary works to the works of scholars such as Prof. B. Metzger. Never have I come across a Book such as Strauss' Life of Jesus. About 1000 pages (in English)of rigorous and detailed analysis of the Life of Jesus in the four Gospels without bias (as far as I can tell).It is a big loss to the humanity that Strauss not only was denied teaching positions (for which he was overqualified: knowing Hebrew, Greek, Latin as well as German and having a genius' intelligence) also his marvelous work(s) were suppressed and kept away from the humanity. I hope and pray that many more Christians will have the opportunity to read this enlightening book of Strauss and learn some of the facts about their scriptures and Faith which are kept away from the believers by the Church for millennia. (My use of millennia about one month before 2000 may sound inaccurate, how ever if we take Matthew's word that Jesus was born in the Days of Herod (not paying attention to the fact that Luke assigns birth of Jesus to the time when Quarinius was Governor of Syria which didn't take place until a decade after the death of Herod the Great(Strauss' Life of Jesus & Westminster Dictionary of the Bible))and knowing that Herod died around 4 BC. (Westminster Dictionary of the Bible) also considering the two year(from the killing of children under two year of age) stay of Jesus and His Mother and Joseph in Egypt (Only in Matthew, no other Evangelist noticed this incident including Josephus who recorded detailed life of Herod (Staruss' Life of Jesus)) before Herod died, Jesus must have been born around 6 BC so that for those faithful to Matthew (rather than Luke) true second millennium was 1994. Therefore we are already in the second millennium. TOO BAD WEE MISSED THE 2ND MILLENIAL CELEBRATIONS.)

In concluding, Strauss is a forgatton hero among Christian Scholarsip

My God Have Mercy on Strauss.

Insight into two great lives: George Eliot and D.F. Strauss.......1997-04-17

This was a labor of love by the editor, me, for this best-seller of 1847 is unknown today because of the ruthless campaign of censorship by powerful church leaders, who only permitted a small-print, forbidding limited edition for scholars who needed it. This user-friendly edition is large print, illustrated with interesting biographies and pictures of David Friedrich Strauss, the father of today's popular studies of the historical jesus (while his own career was ruined for writing this masterpiece). The other biography is of George Eliot, whose masterful translation from the German came 13 years before she became famous as the author of Silas Marner, Middlemarch, et al. This is an oversized book, yet paperback to keep the price down

The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 3 Volume Set (Continuum Classic Texts)

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Old but good
A Classic Still Worth Reading
A brilliant mind with derelictions
What End of the World?

The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, 3 Volume Set (Continuum Classic Texts)
David Friedrich Strauss
Manufacturer: Thoemmes Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0826488129

Book Description

Strauss's Life of Jesus (1835) was an epoch-making work which transformed the nature of biblical criticism. Providing a radical new approach that went straight to the heart of Christianity, it created an immediate sensation and Strauss (1808-74) became the centre of intense controversy. This, the first English translation, was by George Eliot and was her first published book.

Strauss's interpretation of biblical events was a result of and a response to the attacks on orthodox Christianity brought by the Enlightenment. In the face of scepticism about such biblical events as miracles, his aim was to explain how Christians came to believe when there was no objective historical basis for their faith. Taking the resurrection as the key article of faith, his verdict was that religion was an expression of the human mind's ability to generate myths and interpret them as truths revealed by God. Influenced by Hegel and Schleiermacher, Strauss characterized Christianity as a stage in the evolution of pantheism that had reached its culmination in Hegelian philosophy. He thus created an entirely new atmosphere of scholarship on Christ's life and historical criticism of the Bible. The furore turned the Life of Jesus into a cause célébre and to German liberals Strauss became a symbol for the freedom of thought.

Reprinting the English translation in its original and most important edition for the first time, these three volumes provide the reader with the key work of one of the world's most well-known and frank critics of Christianity.

Author: David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74) German theologian, historian of religion and moralist.
Translator: George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) (1819-80), author of Middlemarch, Silas Marner, etc.

t--he first reprinting of this ground-breaking work in its most important edition
--translated into English by George Eliot -her first published book and thus an important milestone in the history of women's literature
--translated from the 4th edition, Strauss's preferred version

Customer Reviews:

Old but good.......2001-10-30

This book is an English translation of a classic German work written by David Strauss in the middle of the nineteenth century; most of the translation was done by the well-known novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). This is no lightweight monograph: Strauss is a scholar who draws on the relevant ancient sources and sprinkles his text with quotations in Greek, Latin and, to a lesser extent, Hebrew. However, only rarely does the argument turn on a lexical or grammatical peculiarity of one of these languages.

Strauss was one of the first theologians to perform a systematic analysis of the text of the New Testament from an essentially modern viewpoint. (For example, he does not believe in the existence of angels or demons.) Strauss works his way through the NT, taking each event or story as it occurs and subjecting it to a painstaking analysis. He relentlessly, one might even say mercilessly, exposes contradictions and inconsistencies in the NT text, considering and eliminating one-by-one all the attempts of conservative theologians to reconcile the irreconcilable. As Albert Schweitzer wrote in "The Quest for the Historical Jesus", Strauss's arguments "filled in the death-certificates of a whole series of explanations which, at first sight, have all the air of being alive, but are not really so."

Thus most of the book is still relevant, because it explodes harmonizing explanations that are still found today in popular Christian literature. However, there can be no doubt that Strauss is too single-minded in his desire to reduce everything in the NT to myth.

The book shows its age; for example, Strauss is of the opinion that Mark is little more than an abridgment of Matthew and Luke, although it is widely held today that Mark in fact has precedence. Almost all of Strauss's references to his contemporaries are to other German scholars, and the majority of these references are now difficult if not impossible to find. (It's easier to find the ancient works cited, such as those by Origen, Augustine, etc.) The book unfortunately lacks an index, and, considering the book's bulk, it is often very difficult indeed to find out if and where Strauss treats a particular NT story.

A Classic Still Worth Reading.......2001-10-15

Strauss's 1835 Life of Jesus is a classic work which was the first to systematically examine the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life with the express purpose of trying to determine what is "mythical" as opposed to historical in them. The criteria he used to make this distinction are substantially the same as those used by critical scholars today, starting with a fundamental conviction that events in the Gospels which require a suspension of ordinary physical laws (walking on water, stilling storms, raising the dead, healing the blind) cannot be accepted as historical but should be understood as myths added to the narrative to bolster the early Church's claims of Jesus' divine commission. In Strauss's day, it was fashionable for rationalist scholars to try to provide naturalistic explanations for miraculous happenings. Strauss effectively demolishes their arguments by showing that they do not fit the plain sense of the texts and are usually harder to swallow than simple belief in the miracle itself.

To a modern student of critical historical Jesus literature, Strauss's approach to the texts will seem naïve. There is little in his exegesis that takes into account evolving strains of tradition reflected in the texts, rather he reads them as literally as possible, pointing out difficulties and inconsistencies that arise, particularly when more than one evangelist reports the same incident. He also demolishes, often with wry wit, the still popular tactic of claiming that if different Gospels report what sounds like the same incident, but these accounts are irreconcilable, then the only explanation is that there was more than one incident of the kind, for example, Jesus must have cleansed the temple in Jerusalem on two separate occasions since the synoptics place this immediately prior to the passion, while John places it early in Jesus' career. Strauss's detailed analyses are still very much to the point in dealing with conservative apologists, such as Gleason Archer, who maintain in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that everything in the Gospels presented as historical fact must be true, regardless of the contortions needed to reconcile the accounts.

There are probably few books that can compare with Strauss's in being very well known and often referred to, but never in fact read. Fortunately, Sigler Press now has an excellent inexpensive edition in print, so readers can see for themselves, in George Eliot's superb translation, what put critical Jesus scholarship on the scholarly map and also cost Strauss his career as a theology professor. While not an "easy read," Life of Jesus is remarkably accessible. Yes, it sometimes quotes Latin, Greek and Hebrew without translation, but if you have your New Testament handy, as you should when you read it, it's pretty easy to follow the references, especially with the additional aids provided by Peter Hodgson, editor of the Sigler edition. It also, thankfully, at 800 pages, is not a work that needs to be read cover to cover. The discussions of individual events are largely self-contained, and can be read with great profit on their own. Life of Jesus deserves a place in every thinking Christian's library, as well as in the library of those interested in the history of critical scholarly research.

A brilliant mind with derelictions.......2001-06-17

Albert Schweitzer said that there are two broad epochs of Bible Study - the period before David Strauss and the period after David Strauss. Strauss belongs to the 18th and 19th century German Protestant rationalist theological movement that tried to explain all the miracles of the Bible 'rationally'. The movement begins about 1776 with H. Reimarus and continues with J. Herder, K. Barhrdt, K. Venturini, H. Paulus, GWF Hegel and F. Schleiermacher. However, it is not ordinarily noted, but Hegel and Schleiermacher were in disagreement on just about everything, and David Strauss as a student of Schleiermacher, not Hegel.

Strauss' troubles began when he crossed the line and used Hegel's name. Hegel was the most famous philosopher of the day, and Strauss decided to drop his name in the marketing of his book. Wrong move. Hegelians, led by Bruno Bauer, hotly contested Strauss' claims to use their mentors name. In his follow-up to this book, IN DEFENSE OF MY LIFE OF JESUS AGAINST THE HEGELIANS (1838), Strauss contradicted himself -- he admitted that Hegel himself would not recognize his writing as representative of Hegel's theology. Ultimately, Strauss ended up alone.

Strauss was the world's first 'demythologizer' and that is saying a great since most 20th century theology centers around demythologization -- even late Catholic theology.

But let's set the record straight -- Strauss was hardly influenced by Hegel at all -- his real strength came from Schleiermacher. (Schleiermacher had his own method of triads.) Strauss tried to capitalize on Hegel's popularity and in fact this worked -- Strauss' book became a best-seller in 1835 and Strauss lived on the royalties for the rest of his life. However, he never wrote a best-seller after this one.

I would point out that Strauss no longer has the last word in Bible criticisms; for example, he did not see the logic in the Marcan Hypothesis, while most every other scholar since 1840 has accepted it. His defense of the priority of JOHN is quite weak. His quest for the historical Jesus was almost nil. His analysis of the mind-set of the Gospel Communities themselves, or of the Gospel authors themselves, was elementary.

Strauss did not create in a vacuum, nor may we say that he had no peers. In many ways his fame was fueled by a fiction, and he did significant damage to Hegelians by obscuring their actual and already complex theological nuances.

I liked this book and I recommend it. One needs to know Strauss before one can be fully fluent in, say, the Jesus Seminar and its authors. I think it is a necessary starting point for today's Bible scholar. To some degree I must agree with Albert Schweitzer: there are two broad epochs of Bible study -- the period before David Strauss and the period after David Strauss.

What End of the World?.......2000-05-27

A controversy on which David Friedrich Strauss dared to express a strong personal opinion as a direct challenge to religious doctrine might easily be imagined by religious readers of this book. Those who chose to defend Strauss during his lifetime as a scholar who rightly reflected the thought of their day merely fall into a pattern that had already been described in scripture. Since the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the only surprising thing is that Strauss could get onto so much trouble on an issue which was obviously just theological, if having an end of the world as a day of judgment is merely a religious issue. I might be confused, but a close look at his method of writing reveals a scholarly intent to examine various views that have already been expressly condemned in the scripture. In his search for a scoffer already condemned in 2 Peter iii. 3 f., Strauss referred to "the Wolfenbuttel Fragmentist. No promise thoughout the whole scriptures, he thinks, is on the one hand more definitely expressed, and on the other, has turned out more flagrantly false, than this," that anything is ever subject to judgment. Annotations to the Text on Section 115 observe, "Here we may observe an interesting contrast between Strauss and Reimarus (the Fragmentist)." The contrast that is noted involves a close reading of the first paragraph of Section 116, in which Strauss supposes that Jesus himself expected to do as his apostles said he would: "it follows that in this particular he was mistaken." The terrible error of the scoffers condemned here is their belief that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." The irony which is usually lost in the discussion of these issues is that those who expect the world to become any more modern in its approach to this kind of problem are the most likely to be disappointed at what happens next. Is anyone betting on what that will be?

The Oxford Reader's Companion to George Eliot

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A must-have for George Eliot fans!

The Oxford Reader's Companion to George Eliot

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 019860422X

Book Description

'Scholarly, ambitious and scrupulous'. This is how the TLS recently described the Oxford Reader's Companion Series. In September 2000, the book which pioneered the series, The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens, came out in paperback. Now the Oxford Reader's Companions to Trollope, Hardy, Conrad, and George Eliot will follow on from its success. In this format each of these books, designed specifically to appeal to students of literature, contains a more comprehensive and accessible range of information than any other reference works on these writers. George Eliot was not only a great novelist but an important journalist and translator too, and her intellectual interests ranged far beyond literature and across many different cultures. The challenge faced by the compilers of this Companion was to do justice to the extraordinary range and depth of her intellectual life and creative work. The result is the most comprehensive guide to the life and work of George Eliot ever written. There is much interest in George Eliot both in scholarly circles and amongst general readers of Victorian fiction. This Companion offers not only information and analysis of George Eliot's novels but also coverage of short stories, essays, poetry and translations, letters, and journals. Over 50 literary scholars from a variety of backgrounds from around the world contribute the latest thinking and expertise to this Companion. Entries include: Life of George Eliot: health, travels, pets owned by George Eliot, brothers and sisters of George Eliot Friends and associates: Lord Acton, Charles Bray, Florence Nightingale, Anthony Trollope Novels: Adam Bede, Daniel Deronda, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial life, Romola Stories: 'Brother Jacob', 'The Lifted Veil' Essays and reviews: 'Address to Working Men, by Felix Holt', 'How I came to write Fiction', 'Notes on Form in Art' Themes: animals, characterization, class, crime, gender, irony, melodrama, society, the woman question Other writers: Aristotle, Jane Austen, E. T. A. Hoffman, John Keats, William Shakespeare, Mary Wollstonecraft, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, George Sand, Walt Whitman, Virginia Woolf Art and artists: illustrations, Rembrandt, J. M. W. Turner Music: Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Haydn Other contexts: feminism, education, politics, society, anti-Semitism, law, race, radicalism, technology, philosophy, utilitarianism, Christianity Publishing: John Chapman, The Cornhill Magazine, The Fortnightly Review, serialization Places: America, Berlin, Coventry, France, Ilfracombe, Munich, Oxford Reception and criticism: biographies of George Eliot, reputation In addition to A-Z entries, the book offers extra material: a useful classified contents list grouping headwords in thematic batches, a family tree, maps showing fictional settings and George Eliot's travels, a general bibliography, an alphabetical list of characters, and a time chart showing events in George Eliot's life in a historical and literary context.

Customer Reviews:

A must-have for George Eliot fans!.......2001-01-05

This is a thorough, well-organized compendium of all aspects of George Eliot's works, their reception, publishing history, etc. If you are reading Felix Holt, you'll find everything you need to know about the Reform Bill of 1832. Other entries, such as "Moral Values" and "Romanticism" are brief but well-written and can deepen the perspective as you read. Each of the novels has a dedicated entry describing the plot with interpretive aids. A very valuable resource.

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George Eliot--a woman

George Eliot a Biography
Gordon S. Haight
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

ASIN: 0195200853

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George Eliot--a woman.......2007-08-06

Why did Mary Ann Evans write under the name of George Eliot? Her biography tells of a woman ahead of her times. She dared to be herself and tasted freedom for it.

George Eliot: Voice of a Century : A Biography

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The Study of an Amazing Intellect
The Study of an Amazing Intellect

George Eliot: Voice of a Century : A Biography
Frederick R. Karl
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393037851

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Frederick Karl's magisterial biography of George Eliot proves her to be one of the most fascinating and iconic individuals of her time. Karl, author of commanding biographies of Conrad, Faulkner, and Kafka, meticulously brings Eliot to life. He re-creates her world, London society, and intellectual thought, as well as the world of the gifted or fortunate. He shows how Eliot transformed herself, taking new names as her self developed and grew. With his discussion of Eliot's life, Karl portrays what life was was like for a woman during that time and identifies important women's issues.

Eliot, torn between her desire to conserve the past and her urge to change the limitations imposed by class and gender, proves to be a fascinating individual beckoning towards our twentieth-century sense of the modern. Karl's is an unforgettable portrait of a writer whose profound works are recognized today as literary masterpieces.

Customer Reviews:

The Study of an Amazing Intellect.......2003-05-29

George Eliot, born Mary Ann Evens, author of arguably the greatest novel in the Victorian era, Middlemarch, was not just an author but an intellectual giant. She translated works of philosophy from the German and from Latin; knew and exchanged ideas with the brightest minds of the time; was fluent in 7 languages (French, Italian, German, Latin, Hebrew, Greek and Spanish), and was compelled by a natural curiosity to acquire knowledge all through her life.

Her life with a married man created a Victorian scandal, yet by the time of her death in 1880 she was England's most celebrated author visited even by Queen Victoria's daughters.

This biography is a thorough, accessible and engrossing book. Author Karl is a fan of Eliot's yet hides none of her blemishes. While he generally refuses to speculate on a lot of Victorian gossip regarding her life, he at times annoys the reader with some unwarranted attempts to psychoanalyze her (I do get tired of the injection of Freud into literature). The slowest parts of the book deal with her frequent trips to Europe. We learn what she did on Tuesday in Berlin, and then her activities in Hamburg on Wednesday. While I realize that the recording of such information is important in providing a fairly complete detail of her life, I tend to nod a bit at the lengthy reports of her travels.

Historically we are blessed with a huge number of extant correspondence of Eliot. The author makes good use of these letters, yet the book does not turn into an epistolary work i.e. a book of nothing but verbatim letters.

One of my purely personal problems with the book was that I have not read all of Eliot's novels. Mr. Karl, of necessity perhaps, relates much of the plots of her books, and thus creates a real spoiler for the novels that I haven't read. That's my problem, of course, and not the author's.

It would seem that people today are probably unaware of this important author who was known throughout England during her writing lifetime. Her novels and her life are an important part of the literary canon. I heartily recommend this well crafted book

The Study of an Amazing Intellect.......2003-05-29

Her life with a married man created a Victorian scandal, yet by the time of her death in 1880 she was Englandýs most celebrated author visited even by Queen Victoriaýs daughters.

This biography is a thorough, accessible and engrossing book. Author Karl is a fan of Eliotýs yet hides none of her blemishes. While he generally refuses to speculate on a lot of Victorian gossip regarding her life, he at times annoys the reader with some unwarranted attempts to psychoanalyze her (I do get tired of the injection of Freud into literature). The slowest parts of the book deal with her frequent trips to Europe. We learn what she did on Tuesday in Berlin, and then her activities in Hamburg on Wednesday. While I realize that the recording of such information is important in providing a fairly complete detail of her life, I tend to nod a bit at the lengthy reports of her travels.

One of my purely personal problems with the book was that I have not read all of Eliotýs novels. Mr. Karl, of necessity perhaps, relates much of the plots of her books, and thus creates a real spoiler for the novels that I havenýt read. Thatýs my problem, of course, and not the authorýs.

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