George Eliot Review Online
Date of this Version
1990
Document Type
Article
Citation
The George Eliot Review 21 (1990)
Abstract
No complete bibliography of George Eliot's works and the biography, scholarship and criticism on her exists. This compilation, which is heavily selective and inconsistent, is a great disappointment. Editions of George Eliot's writings are not included, and the selection contains a number of gaps. For example, Valentine Cunningham's Everywhere Spoken Against (1975) is not included. I find it hard to justify the publication of this book: 128 pages, with 3 -6 entries per page bringing us to a grand total of 3 82 - a fraction of what is worth recording - means that by any standards this is very expensive. Sometimes there is compensation in the critical commentary. I was pleased to see that Mary Deakin' s so often ignored The Early Life of George Eliot (1913) gets 41/2 lines of praise, where Haight's 'definitive' biography merits 91/ 2, There is a brief section called' Advice to the Reader’, but what is missing is a full-scale introduction to the principles of selection and criticism in the book itself.
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Comments
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