I admit to a certain amount of rumination in choosing between four and five stars for this biography. But perhaps it's better to describe the book. It is a useful biography of Mary Ann Evans from childhood to her long-term unofficial marriage to George Lewes and her final short-lived marriage to John Cross. The story of how she first made her way into the literary avant-garde and her first tentative pieces of journalism is well-told.
Each of the major novels is analysed. The poetry gets short shrift, probably rightly. Kathryn Hughes brings out the major contradiction from the novels that all the George Eliot heroines, unlike the author, end up settling for dutiful work in relative obscurity. Hughes is also right that the Eliot heroes, from Adam Bede to Daniel Deronda, have a tendency to priggishness. But I imagine most readers of this book will have read at least some of the novels, and will have their own views.
I think Hughes' judgements are sound, though I hope not too many people are put off reading Romola. Despite the shortcomings of that novel and the insufferable saintliness of the eponymous heroine, the villain Tito Melema is an interesting psychological portrait of the lazy and comfort-loving route to evil. Most importantly, Hughes does full justice to the towering achievement of Middlemarch. Eliot's innate social conservatism is drawn out as a common thread across all the novels, most explicitly in the analysis of Felix Holt.
So, this book will help you understand the background of the woman that became George Eliot and her remarkable intellect that made a lasting contribution to the novel. Well worth a read.
George Eliot: The Last Victorian
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Top reviews from other countries
autodidact
Interesting and Succinct Biography
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 23, 2014Verified Purchase
Katy
Very interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 20, 2023Verified Purchase
SilkSeaSiren
An interesting biography
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 12, 2021Verified Purchase
Amazon Customer
If at all interested in George Eliot then read this!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 9, 2017Verified Purchase
Amazon Customer
Fascinating.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 20, 2019Verified Purchase
