George Eliot in Context [Paperback]

George Eliot's literary achievement is explored through essays on its historical, intellectual, political and social contexts.The fictional writings of George Eliot (18191880) are firmly set in a realistic social, cultural, literary and political context. Thirty-six essays address the context of George Eliot's work in detail, and in so doing illuminate the achievement of her fictional and non-fictional writing.The fictional writings of George Eliot (18191880) are firmly set in a realistic social, cultural, literary and political context. Thirty-six essays address the context of George Eliot's work in detail, and in so doing illuminate the achievement of her fictional and non-fictional writing.George Eliot has always challenged her readers. Prodigiously learned, alive to the massive social changes of her time, defiant of many Victorian orthodoxies, she is at once chronicler and analyst, novelist of nostalgia and monumental thinker. In her great novel Middlemarch she writes of 'that tempting range of relevancies called the universe'. This volume identifies a range of 'relevancies' that form the various contexts  of her time, and of our own  pertinent to understanding and in the fullest sense appreciating George Eliot. The dimensions of her achievement are illuminated by cogent essays on particular facets of the many contexts  historical, intellectual, political, social, cultural  that inform her work. In addition there are discussions of her critical history and legacy, as well as of the material conditions of production and distribution of her work. Here is George Eliot in the twenty-first century.Preface; Chronology Margaret Harris; Part I. Life and Afterlife: 1. George Eliot's life Kathryn Hughes; 2. Publishers and publication Joanne Shattock; 3. Editions of George Eliot's work Joanne Shattock; 4. Genre Nancy Henry; 5. The biographical tradition Margaret Harris; 6. Afterlife Margaret Harris; Part II. Critical Fortunes: 7. Critical responses: to 1900 Juliette lS±