GEORGE ELIOT
A Revolutionary Authoress of the Victorian Era
Mary Ann Evans
(Marian)
◦Pseudonym – George Eliot
◦Born in November 22th, 1819
◦Died in December 22th, 1880
◦The Westminster Review
◦George Henry Lewes
◦"To L(ewes), I owe it."
Her Novels
◦Adam Bede, 1859
◦The Mill on the Floss, 1860
◦Silas Marner, 1861
◦Romola, 1863
◦Felix Holt, the Radical, 1866
◦Middlemarch, 1871-1872
◦Daniel Deronda, 1876
Interesting Facts
◦First person – Modern Tennis and
‘Pop’ Music.
◦£10,000 for Romola.
◦Thomas Hardy’s Far from the
Madding Crowd.
◦Gravestone – John Walter Cross –
Mary Ann Cross
An Ugly Victorian Woman?
◦Henry James’ letter – "magnificently ugly, deliciously
hideous.“
◦"Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty
which, in a very few minutes, steals forth and charms the
mind, so that you end, as I ended, in falling in love with
her.“
◦The Honeymoon Incident
◦“Realism is a literary movement in the 19th century
and proclaimed the death of Romanticism. Realism,
according to Charles Darwin, is an idea in which
man is not a hero but an animal. Man has no more
purpose than to eat and procreate. Realism for most
of the people is a way of living where life can be
enjoyed without dreaming and through suffering.”
(Realism and George Eliot. (2013, October 13.) Retrieved from
oibathens.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/realism/)
Her Realism
◦Middlemarch
◦Adam Bede – Dinah
◦Inner and outer beauty / ugliness
◦“The doctrine that all truth and beauty are to be attained by a
humble and faithful study of nature, and not by substituting
vague forms, bred by imagination on the mists of feeling, in
place of definite, substantial reality.”
Middlemarch: A Study of
Provincial Life
◦Psychological nuance and insight
◦Personal dramas
◦Dorothea Casaubon
◦Provincial Life
The Mill on the Floss
◦Maggie Tulliver and Tom
◦Provincial Life
◦Gender Issues
Works Cited
◦ “15 Intriguing Facts About George Eliot.” Mental Floss, Mental Floss, 20 Apr. 2018,
mentalfloss.com/article/538298/facts-about-george-eliot.
◦ “Five Fascinating Facts about George Eliot.” Interesting Literature, Interesting Literature, 18 Oct. 2015,
interestingliterature.com/2015/09/24/five-fascinating-facts-about-george-eliot/.
◦ “George Eliot.” WikiZero - List of Saturn's Moons, www.wikizero.com/tr/George_Eliot.
◦ “George Eliot.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 2 Apr. 2014, www.biography.com/people/george-eliot9286017.
◦ “The Honeymoon.” Other Press, www.otherpress.com/books/the-honeymoon/.
◦ “Realism.” The British Library, The British Library, 6 May 2014, www.bl.uk/romantics-andvictorians/articles/realism.
◦ “Realism and George Eliot.” LFHED Athens OIB, 13 Oct. 2013, oibathens.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/realism/.
◦ Shmoop Editorial Team. “George Eliot in Realism.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008,
www.shmoop.com/realism/george-eliot-author.html.