Poetry is a fascinating use of language. With almost a million words at their command, it is not surprising that English poets have produced some of the most beautiful, moving, and descriptive verse through the centuries. In this volume, we look at the works of the Victorian authoress and poet George Eliot.
Mary Anne Evans was born in 1819. Her Father did not consider her a great beauty and thought her chances of marriage were slim. He therefore invested in her education and by the time she was sixteen, she had boarded at several schools and acquired a good education. With the death of her mother in 1835, she returned home to keep house for her father and siblings. By 1850 she had moved to London to work at the Westminster Review where she published many articles and essays. The following year Mary Anne met George Henry Lewes, and in 1854 they moved in together; a somewhat scandalous situation as he was already married—albeit with complications. Her views on literature had taken some time to coalescence, but with the publication of parts of Scenes From A Clerical Life in 1858, she knew she wanted to be a novelist. Under the pseudonym of George Eliot that we know so well, Adam Bede was published in 1859 followed by Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, and Middlemarch. Success resulted in her real name going public, but it seemed not to affect how the public devoured her novels.
In The Poetry of George Eliot, we look with a keen eye at her poetry. Although slim in number, she was able to take a situation, scene or thought and bring us into its world with undeniable care.
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