Warwickshire News Mine

The website, which has been created by Warwickshire’s Library Service and is being updated further, is putting the county’s collection of George Eliot letters online for the first time.

A biography details key points in the life of Mary Ann Evans who achieved literary fame under the name of George Eliot; it recounts how she moved to London after her father’s death and her dealings with the likes of Thackeray, Dickens and Robert Browning, her affairs and relationship with George Henry Lewes - with whom she remained until his death in 1878 – and the ensuing expulsion from London’s literary society and how she became George Eliot.

The letters are a rare opportunity to gain insight into Eliot’s life and fall into two categories; the larger group consists of letters to and by Eliot and Lewes with the second group showing correspondence to and from members of her brother’s family

They cover a range of subjects; letters show Eliot corresponding with the Sibree family whom she got to know whilst living in Coventry in her early twenties, others date from the 1870s and are addressed to Lewes from his son, Herbert, charting his poor health which was to claim his life in 1875. 

Other letters reveal the correspondence between Eliot and Lewes to their friends, the Helps, Arthur, a writer, and Alice, and relate to discussions on matters such as vivisection.  Other letters include Lewes’ correspondence on scientific works.

The George Eliot Fellowship Letters is a large collection which relate largely to the family of Isaac Evans and shed considerable light on how Eliot’s family, which had disowned her during her 24 year ‘marriage’ to Lewes, responded to her in the decades following her death.

The printed collection of Eliot’s works can also be accessed via the website, which is held at Nuneaton Library, and has other links to critical works to help the reader understand and appreciate Eliot’s writing more fully.

Further user-friendly links enable visitors to learn more about Eliot’s life and its relevance to the contemporary period so guides the user towards recommended reading and highlights events that are happening around the county to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘Scenes of Clerical Life’.

The digitisation of the letters was funded by Museums Libraries and Archives West Midlands

Lesley Kirkwood, Warwickshire local studies librarian, said:  “The website is a wonderful opportunity to find out more about one of the county’s foremost figures.  The letters are an authentic source of what was happening in her life at a time when she was among the nations most prolific and talented writers and are of great importance to those interested in Eliot or to those who are just curious about society life in the nineteenth century.”

To view the website, visit http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/georgeeliot.

Link to WCC