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George Eliot: A Life
A biography of the nineteenth-century novelist examines her transformation from shy Midlands girl to London intellectual and discusses her development as a novelist
480 pages, Paperback
First published April 23, 1983
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174 people want to read
About the author
Rosemary Ashton
33 books19 followersRosemary Ashton is Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature and an Honorary Fellow of UCL.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 5, 2023
Ashton is a scholar specializing in Victorian literature and has written much about George Eliot, as well as editing an edition of Middlemarch, so this biography is a richly detailed exploration of the life and work of Mary Ann Evans, Marian Evans, Marian Evans Lewes, George Eliot, Mary Ann Cross — a creative genius whose many names tracked phases in her life and personal/professional identity.
Ashton is also the biographer of George Eliot's long term partner, G.H. Lewes: A Life, which I have read.
This biography is so detailed and comprehensive it at times overwhelms with minutiae, such as parsing the slight differences between Protestant sects (which loomed in significance at the time but now seem trivial and obscure), and plumbing the arcane depths of debates among philosophers and other thinkers.
However, that was the world in which George Eliot felt most comfortable and one in which her abilities dazzled. It is only natural that her biography should be so comprehensively detailed.
Soon after starting this book I skipped ahead and read the "Last Years" chapter and the "Epilogue". I'm just re-reading them now. I was curious to see how Ashton treated George Eliot's marriage to John Cross, who was often described as a "young man" but was 40 at the time of their marriage. Eliot was about 20 years older than her husband, and this created fresh scandal, especially since on their honeymoon in Venice Mr. Cross jumped out their hotel window into the canal.
This late life marriage was legal, and enabled George Eliot's judgmental brother to finally attempt to restore relations (they had no contact at all for the years she was partnered with Lewes).
I appreciated Ashton's in-depth comments on each of George Eliot's novels, and enjoyed this biography even if at times I felt adrift, lost among the nuances and intellectual debates of the time.
Ashton is also the biographer of George Eliot's long term partner, G.H. Lewes: A Life, which I have read.
This biography is so detailed and comprehensive it at times overwhelms with minutiae, such as parsing the slight differences between Protestant sects (which loomed in significance at the time but now seem trivial and obscure), and plumbing the arcane depths of debates among philosophers and other thinkers.
However, that was the world in which George Eliot felt most comfortable and one in which her abilities dazzled. It is only natural that her biography should be so comprehensively detailed.
Soon after starting this book I skipped ahead and read the "Last Years" chapter and the "Epilogue". I'm just re-reading them now. I was curious to see how Ashton treated George Eliot's marriage to John Cross, who was often described as a "young man" but was 40 at the time of their marriage. Eliot was about 20 years older than her husband, and this created fresh scandal, especially since on their honeymoon in Venice Mr. Cross jumped out their hotel window into the canal.
This late life marriage was legal, and enabled George Eliot's judgmental brother to finally attempt to restore relations (they had no contact at all for the years she was partnered with Lewes).
I appreciated Ashton's in-depth comments on each of George Eliot's novels, and enjoyed this biography even if at times I felt adrift, lost among the nuances and intellectual debates of the time.
October 11, 2025
Always interested in how an author's life influences her writing.
March 7, 2022
An interesting and comprehensive biography of one of the great English novelists of the Victorian era. She wrote, among other things, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch, the last often regarded as the greatest novel by an English writer. Her forte was the realistic depiction of ordinary people.
Marian Evans probably used a pen-name because of the scandal of her private life: she lived in unmarried bliss with George Henry Lewes, himself married to a woman and supporting a number of children fathered by the lover of that lady. In those (even more sexist) days, whilst Lewes as a man could enter society, Evans would have been shunned. It was not until the phenomenal of her first novel, Adam Bede, that she allowed her true identity to become known.
It was particularly interesting in explaining her religious views: she was extremely religious in her young days before becoming agnostic. We would probably describe her as humanist today.
She believed in show don't tell. She had “a view of fiction which takes it for granted that literature should have a morally beneficial effect, be utile as well as dulce, but which requires that the message be subservient to the medium.” (Ch 6) In her words: “We don’t want a man with a wand, going about the gallery and haranguing us. Art is art and tells its own story.” (Ch 6)
Furthermore, she objected to poetic justice on moral grounds. If we have the knowledge or the expectation of reward for being good, or for doing our duty, she argued, than we are doing good from self-interested motives.On the other hand, “though the plots in her novels are complex and open to different possibilities, the endings are, like any other writer’s, single.” (Ch 6) “Either Maggie lives or she dies. ,,, It is difficult for the author to avoid seeming to reward of punish characters by choosing a particular ending for them. It was a dilemma faced by all nineteenth-century novelists (many twentieth-century novels get found it by ending in flux, as it were).” (Ch 6)
She liked eg Goethe precisely because he was tolerant of human weakness and showed his characters with both bad traits and good. “In novels by writers such as Goethe ... good and evil are not so easy to distinguish as in much fiction. ... Not that Goethe does not preach ... He does, but he lets his characters be, airing his principles generally... George Eliot’s would be a different way. For her the organic unity of purpose and practice was important. ... Her belief in a kind of determinism by which character carries its own consequences, or Nemesis, leads her in effect often to punish such characters by withholding happiness from them while seeing and sympathizing with the mitigating circumstances of their cases.” (Ch 6)
She was politically conservative (despite her radicalism in morality): “She accepted the slow pace of psychological and social change, understanding and even cherishing her characters’ clinging to traditional beliefs and customs in the face of sometimes rapid political and industrial progress. ... though her conservatism was, of course, in tension with her personal history of rebellion against convention in the matter of religious belief and her defiance - albeit reluctant - of society’s expectations about ... the relations between men and women.” (Ch 6)
This biography is worthy and very comprehensive
Marian Evans probably used a pen-name because of the scandal of her private life: she lived in unmarried bliss with George Henry Lewes, himself married to a woman and supporting a number of children fathered by the lover of that lady. In those (even more sexist) days, whilst Lewes as a man could enter society, Evans would have been shunned. It was not until the phenomenal of her first novel, Adam Bede, that she allowed her true identity to become known.
It was particularly interesting in explaining her religious views: she was extremely religious in her young days before becoming agnostic. We would probably describe her as humanist today.
She believed in show don't tell. She had “a view of fiction which takes it for granted that literature should have a morally beneficial effect, be utile as well as dulce, but which requires that the message be subservient to the medium.” (Ch 6) In her words: “We don’t want a man with a wand, going about the gallery and haranguing us. Art is art and tells its own story.” (Ch 6)
Furthermore, she objected to poetic justice on moral grounds. If we have the knowledge or the expectation of reward for being good, or for doing our duty, she argued, than we are doing good from self-interested motives.On the other hand, “though the plots in her novels are complex and open to different possibilities, the endings are, like any other writer’s, single.” (Ch 6) “Either Maggie lives or she dies. ,,, It is difficult for the author to avoid seeming to reward of punish characters by choosing a particular ending for them. It was a dilemma faced by all nineteenth-century novelists (many twentieth-century novels get found it by ending in flux, as it were).” (Ch 6)
She liked eg Goethe precisely because he was tolerant of human weakness and showed his characters with both bad traits and good. “In novels by writers such as Goethe ... good and evil are not so easy to distinguish as in much fiction. ... Not that Goethe does not preach ... He does, but he lets his characters be, airing his principles generally... George Eliot’s would be a different way. For her the organic unity of purpose and practice was important. ... Her belief in a kind of determinism by which character carries its own consequences, or Nemesis, leads her in effect often to punish such characters by withholding happiness from them while seeing and sympathizing with the mitigating circumstances of their cases.” (Ch 6)
She was politically conservative (despite her radicalism in morality): “She accepted the slow pace of psychological and social change, understanding and even cherishing her characters’ clinging to traditional beliefs and customs in the face of sometimes rapid political and industrial progress. ... though her conservatism was, of course, in tension with her personal history of rebellion against convention in the matter of religious belief and her defiance - albeit reluctant - of society’s expectations about ... the relations between men and women.” (Ch 6)
This biography is worthy and very comprehensive
September 2, 2022
I am doing my senior research project for my English major on George Eliot and this was one of the texts that I read.
Overall I really enjoyed this biography. The pacing and organization for the work was really well done and Ashton managed to pack a lot of detail into every page. After reading this book I had a much deeper understanding of her relationship with Lewes and I also understood her character a lot more. After reading this book I wholeheartedly ship Lewes and Eliot and their love for each other was beautiful. I started crying when Lewes died because I could only imagine the pain Eliot was enduring.
Yes, there were times that I could tell this biography was written almost 30 years ago, but overall it has held up really well. I also got some new ideas for my project, so that was exciting as well. Definitely recommend as an Eliot biography to pick up.
Overall I really enjoyed this biography. The pacing and organization for the work was really well done and Ashton managed to pack a lot of detail into every page. After reading this book I had a much deeper understanding of her relationship with Lewes and I also understood her character a lot more. After reading this book I wholeheartedly ship Lewes and Eliot and their love for each other was beautiful. I started crying when Lewes died because I could only imagine the pain Eliot was enduring.
Yes, there were times that I could tell this biography was written almost 30 years ago, but overall it has held up really well. I also got some new ideas for my project, so that was exciting as well. Definitely recommend as an Eliot biography to pick up.
December 3, 2009
As a big George Eliot fan, I enjoyed this biography. Eliot seems to have found the perfect life partner, with whom she blossomed as a thinker and a writer. I also enjoyed reading about her publisher and about the social turmoil of the times. Eliot and Lewes seem to have known everyone important in Victorian times!
April 12, 2017
Fine, illuminating biography.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews