



In Love with George Eliot
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
Who was the real George Eliot? In Love with George Eliot is a glorious debut novel which tells the compelling story of England’s greatest woman novelist as you’ve never read it before.
Marian Evans is a scandalous figure, living in sin with a married man, George Henry Lewes. She has shocked polite society, and women rarely deign to visit her. In secret, though, she has begun writing fiction under the pseudonym George Eliot. As Adam Bede’s fame grows, curiosity rises as to the identity of its mysterious writer. Gradually it becomes apparent that the moral genius Eliot is none other than the disgraced woman living with Lewes.
Now Evans’ tremendous celebrity begins. The world falls in love with her. She is the wise and great writer, sent to guide people through the increasingly secular, rudderless century, and an icon to her progressive feminist peers — with whom she is often in disagreement. Public opinion shifts. Her scandalous cohabitation is forgiven. But this idyll is not secure and cannot last. When Lewes dies, Evans finds herself in danger of shocking the world all over again.
Meanwhile, in another rudderless century, two women compete to arrive at an interpretation of Eliot as writer and as woman …
Everyone who has thrilled at being shown the world anew by George Eliot will thrill again at her presence, complex and compelling, here.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O'Shaughnessy crafts in her luminous debut an evocative portrait of English author George Eliot. After Marian Evans arrives in London from Coventry in 1851 to work on the Westminster Review, she falls in love with the married George Henry Lewes, a philosopher and writer, and they scandalize Victorian society by openly living together. After Marian publishes several novels in the 1860s under the pen name of George Eliot (the secret of her identity doesn't last long, but the revelation doesn't adversely affect her books' popularity or literary acclaim), she and George meet Johnny Cross, a young banker who manages their finances and falls in love with Marian. But it's Marian's emotional and intellectual connection with George not always perfect that sustains her. After George dies in 1878, Johnny and Marian spend more time together, and, despite Johnny's confusion about his sexual desires, he presses for marriage, to which Marian consents. While a present-day parallel narrative about an academic who's writing a novel on Eliot adds little, O'Shaughnessy handles the passion and drama between Marian and Johnny with aplomb. Historical fiction fans won't want to miss this.