Overview

Reading George Eliot's work was described by one Victorian critic as 'the feeling of entering the confessional in which she sees and hears all the secrets of human psychology--that roar which lies on the other side of silence'. This new biography of George Eliot goes beyond the much-told story of her life. It gives an account of what it means to become a novelist, and to think like a novelist: in particular a realist novelist for whom art exists not for art's sake but in the exploration and service of human life. It shows the formation and the workings of George Eliot's mind as it plays into her creation of some of the greatest novels of the Victorian era. When at the age of 37 Marian Evans became George Eliot, it followed long mental preparation and personal suffering. During this time she related her power of intelligence to her capacity for feeling: discovering that her thinking and her art had to combine both. That was the great ambition of her novels--not to be mere pastimes or fictions but experiments in life and helps in living, through the deepest account of human complexity available. Philip Davis's illuminating new biography will enable you both to see through George Eliot's eyes and to feel what it is like to be seen by her, in the imaginative involvement of her readers with her characters.

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9780199577378

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Anyone who has read and loved Middlemarch will appreciate Davis's devotion to his subject Claire Lowdon, Sunday Times How many books of erudite, intellectual biography and closely argued literary criticism can ever be described as an enthralling, lucid, page-turning read? ... Philip Davis is the searching, perceptive critic this great novelist deserves. Patricia Duncker, Literary Review

George Eliot, I believe, would have deeply appreciated Philip Davis's book; not just for its sympathy with her creative struggles and ambitions, but because she would have found a kinship in his expansiveness of mind. Learning as he does from George Eliot, Philip Davis returns her to us, more urgent and expressive than ever. Howard Jacobson, Booker-prize winning novelist 2010 The answer to why we need yet another biography of George Eliot is here in this extraordinary book. Davis observes with a novelist's eye. While he emerges as a critic and rigorous scholar of the highest order, what is more important is that George Eliot emerges freshly as a great novelist still in fruitful conversation with us about art, about morality, about what matters in life. George Levine, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University Here is a work of splendid empathy: a biography of the writing transferring life's speculative vitality to words. What emerges, stirringly, is a whole new account of novelistic thought in the imaginative grammar of realism. Garrett Stewart, James O. Freedman Professor of Letters, University of Iowa, author of The Deed of Reading

"`George Eliot, I believe, would have deeply appreciated Philip Davis's book; not just for its sympathy with her creative struggles and ambitions, but because she would have found a kinship in his expansiveness of mind. Learning as he does from George Eliot, Philip Davis returns her to us, more urgent and expressive than ever.' Howard Jacobson, Booker-prize winning novelist 2010 `The answer to why we need yet another biography of George Eliot is here in this extraordinary book. Davis observes with a novelist's eye. While he emerges as a critic and rigorous scholar of the highest order, what is more important is that George Eliot emerges freshly as a great novelist still in fruitful conversation with us about art, about morality, about what matters in life.' George Levine, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University `Here is a work of splendid empathy: ""a biography of the writing"" transferring life's speculative vitality to words. What emerges, stirringly, is a whole new account of novelistic thought in the imaginative grammar of realism.' Garrett Stewart, James O. Freedman Professor of Letters, University of Iowa, author of The Deed of Reading"

`George Eliot, I believe, would have deeply appreciated Philip Davis's book; not just for its sympathy with her creative struggles and ambitions, but because she would have found a kinship in his expansiveness of mind. Learning as he does from George Eliot, Philip Davis returns her to us, more urgent and expressive than ever.' Howard Jacobson, Booker-prize winning novelist 2010 `The answer to why we need yet another biography of George Eliot is here in this extraordinary book. Davis observes with a novelist's eye. While he emerges as a critic and rigorous scholar of the highest order, what is more important is that George Eliot emerges freshly as a great novelist still in fruitful conversation with us about art, about morality, about what matters in life.' George Levine, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University `Here is a work of splendid empathy: ""a biography of the writing"" transferring life's speculative vitality to words. What emerges, stirringly, is a whole new account of novelistic thought in the imaginative grammar of realism.' Garrett Stewart, James O. Freedman Professor of Letters, University of Iowa, author of The Deed of Reading

Author Information

Philip Davis is the author of The Victorians 1830-1880, volume 8 in the Oxford English Literary History Series, and a companion volume on Why Victorian Literature Still Matters. He has written on Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, the literary uses of memory from Wordsworth to Lawrence, and various books on reading. He is general editor of OUP's new paperback series The Literary Agenda on the role of literature in the world of the 21st century. His previous literary biography was a life of Bernard Malamud. He is editor of The Reader magazine, the written voice of the outreach organisation The Reader.

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