Author: Nancy Henry
Author info: Professor of English
Publication Date: May 2012
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Synopsis: This book differs from previous biographies of the Victorian novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) in its self-consciousness about biographical narrative and its questioning of accepted but unsubstantiated stories about Eliot’s life that have been circulated since the first biography of the author appeared in 1883. Furthermore, Nancy Henry draws on the vast amount of scholarship conducted on Eliot’s life and work in recent years to produce original interpretations of Eliot’s novels, poetry and essays in the context of her life and times. The book seeks to revitalize the genre of the critical biography at a time when biographical and literary studies tend to be separate enterprises with separate audiences.