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Product Description
This biography of Eliot sets her vividly in the political, social and religious context of the time. She arrived in London in 1851, determined to make her way as a journalist on the "Westminster Review", a paper until then exclusively dominated by men. It was whilst she was working on this journal that she found her writer's voice - ironic, sceptical and broadly sympathizing. The author examines her relationship with Lewes (the subject of a previous biography), his encouragement, battling both against her pride and her fear of failure, her unrequited love for Chapman, her employer on the Review and her love for Spencer, the recipient of her extraordinary love letters, begging attention, yet at the same time strong, self-aware and witty at her own expense. This is a sensitive and revealing portrait of a modern and highly unorthodox life, giving a fuller treatment than any other biography on George Eliot, by an author who has been studying Eliot for 15 years.
Amazon.com Review
George Eliot, née Marian Evans, was born before her time; a liberated woman and an agnostic in the sexually repressive and pious Victorian era, Eliot has long been a favorite of modern feminist critics. Biographer Rosemary Ashton also admires Eliot's independence and her refusal to bend to the mores of the society and age in which she lived, but in George Eliot: A Life she proves that Eliot was more a product of her time than some might think. Though Eliot was unconventional enough to enter into a series of sexual relationships without benefit of marriage, her choice of men was curiously traditional, illustrated by her attraction to George Lewes, a man several years her senior who loved her, protected her, bolstered her ego, and managed her affairs.
Though Eliot's sexual liaisons are certainly interesting, Ashton, a thorough researcher and perceptive critic, also delves into Eliot's novels, analyzing them in light of the social and intellectual milieu in which they were written; this milieu forms one of the most fascinating aspects of Ashton's biography: Victorian intellectuals' struggle to find an alternative to Christian orthodoxy in a time when science and philosophy were exploding long-held religious beliefs. From the details of George Eliot's personal life to the attitudes of the society in which she lived, Rosemary Ashton has done a fine job of conveying not only a life but an entire world.
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