George Eliot is so famous today as a Victorian novelist that it is always a surprise to discover that she was 36 years old before she first turned her attention to fictional writing. Prior to this time she had contributed numerous articles to the
Westminster Reviewand other periodicals, translated innovative theological works by Spinoza, Strauss, and Feuerbach, and mastered the sociological thought of Herbert Spencer – all under her real name, Marian Evans. A latecomer to the world of fiction she was, and would ever remain, particularly self-conscious about publishing creative and original writing and it took considerable encouragement from her partner, G. H. Lewes, to get her stories written and printed. A skilful literary agent, it was he who arranged for John Blackwood to publish…
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Citation: Uglow, Nathan. "Scenes of Clerical Life". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 October 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2231, accessed 12 December 2024.]