The Lifted Veil

George Eliots The Lifted Veil was first published in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine in 1859 and has now become one of the authors most widely read and critically discussed stories. Told from the point of view of a young, egocentric, and morbid clairvoyant man, Latimer, it is a dark fantasy portrait of an artist whose visionary powers merely blight his life. The story reflected the scientific interest of the time in the physiology of the brain, mesmerism, phrenology, and experiments in revivification. It also is a reflection of the authors moral philosophy. The Lifted Veil is a significant part of the Victorian tradition of horror fiction, along with Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevensons The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stokers Dracula.