George Eliot
The Last Victorian

Excellent, thorough, interesting biography of a fascinating person in a complex time. Hughes negotiates everything very well, and keeps a good balance of writing about her life and work together. Also very readable. Recommended for anyone who likes Eliot's work. This is what I always hope biographie......more

Buried within the mass of gossipy obsession with guesswork as to ME's emotional life (and sex life) and far too much statement of opinion as though it were fact, is about 50 pages of interest. The problems with this as a bio of a writer can be seen from the fact that I would estimate only about 10%......more

As I’ve mentioned before, for many years, it’s been my ambition to research whether or not George Eliot had any contact with Rav Hirsch’s community in Frankfurt when she researched Daniel Deronda. I’ve taken a few steps toward that goal in recent months, and reading this biography was one of them. I......more

On the one hand, George Eliot was easily one of the most sensational women of the nineteenth century, to say nothing of the millenium, and this bio makes her accessible to someone who read and liked _Mill on the Floss_, but doesn't know much about Eliot's contemporary world. On the other hand, Georg......more

I must have really enjoyed this book because after finishing it (and My Life in Middlemarch) I went out to read George Elliot’s entire oeuvre. I think this famous biographer helped me to realize that Elliot was one of the most sophisticated thinkers who ever wrote creative fiction. In fact, this boo......more