George Eliot (1819-1880)

A selective list of articles for the British novelist George Eliot, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the Modern Language Association Guidelines for Authors of Web Pages

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Literary Criticism

Bodenheimer, Rosemarie. The Real Life of Mary Ann Evans: George Eliot, Her Letters and Fiction (Cornell UP 1994) Reviewed by Linda M. Shires in Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Spring 1995; short review in Boston College Chronicle, by Sandra Howe

Bonaparte, Felicia. Introduction to Middlemarch. At Google Books

Capuano, Peter J. "An objective aural-relative in Middlemarch." [musical imagery; Arthur Schopenhauer]. SEL: Studies in English Literature 47 (Autumn 2007)

Eigner, Edwin M. Review of three scholarly works on George Eliot: George Eliot by Rosemary Ashton; George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Science: The Make-Believe of a Beginning by Sally Shuttleworth; The Teaching of George Eliot by William Myers. First page of review only. The Modern Language Review 82 (Oct. 1987)

Galloway, Shirley. "The Casuistry of George Eliot." On the contributions of three philosophers--Auguste Comte, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Benedictus Spinoza--to Eliot's work. At former college English teacher Shirley Galloway's personal website.

Graham, Stephen Meyer. "George Eliot's dialogue with history" [the interplay of fictional text and historical subtext in Romola, Felix Holt, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda] PhD dissertation.

Hughes, Katherine. "The Mystery of Amos Barton." "An anonymous short story, written 150 years ago, about a real-life country clergyman caused suspicion and intrigue in literary circles." (UK) Guardian, 6 Jan. 2007

Lesjak, Carolyn. "A modern odyssey: Realism, the masses, and nationalism in George Eliot's Felix Holt." Novel: A Forum on Fiction (Fall 1996)

Litvak, Joseph. Caught in the Act: Theatricality in the Nineteenth-Century English Novel. (U of California. P, 1992). A complete, book-length critical study. Litvak contends that private experience in George Eliot "is a rigorous enactment of a public script that constructs normative gender and class identities." California Digital Library

Logan, Peter Melville. "George Eliot and the fetish of realism." Studies in the Literary Imagination, Fall 2002

Novy, Marianne L. A review of Novy's Engaging with Shakespeare: Responses of George Eliot & Other Women Novelists (U of Georgia P, 1994) Reviewed in College Literature (Spring 2000) by Fike, Matthew

Machann, Clinton. "The male villain as domestic tyrant in Daniel Deronda: Victorian masculinities and the cultural context of George Eliot's novel." [Masculinity]. The Journal of Men's Studies, 22 Mar. 2005

Maitzen, Rohan. Whether religious faith is necessary to morality, and how George Eliot answered this question. From Professor Maitzen's blog, 6/25/07

Markovits, Stefanie. "George Eliot's Problem with Action." SEL: Studies in English Literature 41 (Autumn 2001)

Mitchell, Rebecca N. Learning to Read: Interpersonal Literacy in Adam Bede." Papers on Language and Literature (Spring 2008)

Payne, David. "The serialist vanishes: Producing belief in George Eliot." Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Fall 1999

Price, Leah. "George Eliot and the production of consumers." Novel: A Forum on Fiction (Winter 1997)

Purdy, Dwight H. "'The One Poor Word' in Middlemarch." [irony, sympathy, treatment of the poor] SEL: Studies in English Literature 44 (Autumn, 2004)

Stephens, Leslie. George Eliot, 1902. Complete book, a biography by the eminent Victorian and father of Virginia Woolf.

Vigderman, Patricia. The traffic in men: female kinship in three novels by George Eliot. Style (Spring 1998)

Woolf, Virginia. An appreciation of George Eliot. Times Literary Supplement, 20 November, 1919

Introduction

Cohen, Paula Marantz. "Why Read George Eliot? Her novels are just modern enough—and just old-fashioned enough, too." American Scholar Spring 2006.

Galloway, Shirley. "Silas Marner: A Study of Transition." At former college English teacher Shirley Galloway's personal website.

Galloway, Shirley. "Martyrdom and the Unjust Society." Galloway explains that sympathy is what Harriet Beecher Stowe, in Uncle Tom's Cabin and George Eliot, in The Mill on the Floss wished to stir in their readers. At former college English teacher Shirley Galloway's personal website.

Uglow, Nathan. "George Eliot." Literary Encyclopedia. Eds. Robert Clark, Emory Elliott, Janet Todd. An introduction to George Eliot, from a database that provides signed literary criticism by experts in their field, and is available to individuals for a reasonably-priced subscription. On Adam Bede; on Scenes of Clerical Life; on The Mill on the Floss; on Silas Marner; on Romola; on Felix Holt; on Middlemarch

"George Eliot." The Victorian Web. Ed. George P. Landow. Many essays on George Eliot's technique, themes, biography, and the Victorian background

A guide for teaching Middlemarch from the Public Broadcasting System. Includes suggestions on presenting and discussing episodes of the film version, a biography of Eliot, article on the historical context, and suggestions for using film to develop critical, analytical skills

Another excellent teaching guide, on Daniel Deronda, from the Public Broadcasting System

Ashton, Rosemary. A review of Ashton's George Eliot: A Life (Allen Lane/The Penguin Press). Reveiwed in the NYTimes, 27 July 1997, by William S. Peterson [requires registration and intrusive software add-ons].

Hughes, Katherine. A review of George Eliot: The Last Victorian. Also the first chapter of the book. NYTimes, 18 July, 1999 [requires registration and intrusive software add-ons].

Bibliography, web sites

George Eliot collection: facsimiles and transcripts of the George Eliot Collection. Access to the collection and a short biography of George Eliot. George Eliot Collection, Nuneaton Library, Warwickshire.

"Women in the Literary Marketplace," an online exhibit from the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell U, contains short entries on several Victorian women authors and their typical themes, information about the publishing context, and some images of first editions

"Windows on Warwickshire." Thousands of primary sources taken from archives, libraries and museums in Warwickshire have been digitized. Search on "George Eliot" to see her shoes, a jug belonging to her father, her lapdesk, and assorted treasures.

Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, the influential periodical, edited by "Christopher North," which began publication in 1817 and published such writers as Walter Scott, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Joseph Conrad. Contents: "The Rise and Fall of the House of Blackwood's Magazine," an illustrated essay on the history of the magazine; Bibliography of articles on Blackwood's Magazine and its authors; link to the internet library of Early Journals, which contains a digital archive of Blackwood's Magazine 1843-1863; "The First One Hundred Numbers," a study of the first 100 issues, including number 7, attacking Coleridge, Leigh Hunt and "the Cockney School of Poetry."

Web site for Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature: A scholarly journal devoted to the study of women's literature of all periods and nationalities [Feminist and Women's Studies]

Web site for Women's Writing, an international scholarly journal focusing on women's writing up to the end of the long nineteenth century. A sample copy is available for viewing, requires registration

Old reviews from the Atlantic Monthly contemporary criticism of George Eliot's novels in editions of the Atlantic Monthly from the nineteenth century can be found at this site, provided by Cornell U.

Removed Articles

Allen, Brooke. "Complexity and contradiction: Virginia Woolf and George Eliot," New Criterion, Nov. 1997 (removed)

Deresiewicz, William Barry. "The novel of community from Austen to modernism." PhD dissertation, Columbia, 1998 (removed)

Jacobs, Alan. On George Eliot as a Christian and moral writer. In First Things: A Journal of Religion and Public Life (removed) http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0004/reviews/jacobs.html

Kramer, Dale. "The Compositor as Copy-Text." Kramer explains the editing process in Romola for the Clarendon Edition of the Novels of George Eliot. Transactions of the Society for Textual Scholarship 9 (removed)

Malmud, Anne Deborah. "Widows, spinsters, and modern mannish maidens: Femmes soles in nineteenth-century English law and literature" [novels of George Eliot, Jane Austen, Anne Brontë; Married Women's Property Acts]. PhD dissertation, Columbia, 1996 (removed)

Watson, Tim. "Jamaica, Genealogy, George Eliot: Inheriting the Empire After Morant Bay." Watson traces changing cultural constructions of race and class in 19th century England through the novelistic career of George Eliot. Jouvert 1 (removed)

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