George Eliot

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 28 APR. 1997

She defied her father over religion, lived openly with a married man, and brought a subtle realism to the English novel. It is tempting to think of George Eliot (1819-1880) as better matched to our century than her own. But Ashton's biography draws widely from Eliot's letters and those of her contemporaries to provide a rich social context for a woman who embraced change, yet seldom advertised it. Ashton carefully traces the transformation of the severe but inquiring Midlands girl, Mary Ann Evans, into the agnostic and witty Marian Evans who moved to London in her 20s and began a career as translator and critic. Her widening circle included her soon-to-be lover, the writer and editor G.H. Lewes. Author of an earlier Lewes biography, Ashton adopts a protective tone toward the couple, who shocked even their iconoclastic friends with their lifelong affair. Yet it was Lewes who buoyed Marian's fragile confidence that enabled her to become George Eliot. From the early Scenes of Clerical Life to Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Middlemarch and beyond, Ashton's narrative finds momentum and rhythm, less as literary criticism than as a portrait of the work of writing. (Eliot's publisher, John Blackwood, emerges as a memorably sweet character in his own right.) Ashton's tendency to overpraise her subject is forgivable. She leaves the reader with a rich portrait of Marian Evans and a strong desire to return to George Eliot.