The Critical Response To George Eliot: (critical Responses In Arts And Letters) [Hardcover]

George Eliot is one of the most important women novelists of the 19th century. Throughout her writings, she explores the interconnectedness of the self and society. This theme of interconnectedness creates the social, psychological, and religious worlds of her fictional communities. Eliot distinguished herself from other Victorian novelists through her realism, her use of an engaging narrator, and her indebtedness to thinkers such as Comte, Mill, and Darwin.

The essays assembled in this book represent the best criticism of Eliot's novels from the 19th century to the present day. The essays are grouped in sections devoted to particular novels, and within each section the essays are arranged chronologically to chart the evolving critical response to her work. An introductory chapter briefly overviews the philosophical influences on Eliot's novels, and a bibliography of selected additional readings concludes the book. The volume summarizes the critical response to Eliot's work and documents changing views toward her novels.

Foreword by Cameron Northouse
Introduction
General Response to the Novels
Contemporary Review by Edward Dowden
Fortnightly Review by Sidney Colvin
Social Analysis in the Novels of George Eliot by Claude T. Bissell
George Eliot's Location of Value in History by Sara Moore Putzell
Critical Response toAdam Bede
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine by W.L. Collins
The Times by E.S. Dallas
Eliot to Francois D'Albert-Durade
Adam Bede: Society in Flux by Brian D. Beyers
Infanticide and Respectability: Hetty Sorrel as Abandoned Child in Adam Bede by Mason Harris
Critical Response toThe Mill on the Floss
The Guardian, Unsigned Review
The Times by E.S. Dallas
The Mill on the Floss and the Contemporary Social Values: Tom Tulliver and Samuel Smiles by ló×