George Eliot Review Online

 

Authors

Margaret Wolfit

Date of this Version

2005

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 37 (2006)

Comments

Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org

Abstract

It is always exciting to discover something new and to come upon it unexpectedly. That was my happy experience a few years ago. I had decided to try my hand at devising a biographical programme on George Eliot and to attempt to portray her at the end of her life, reminiscing on past events. I wanted to absorb as much as I could about her, starting with her early days. What were the influences that shaped her life and writing? What books had she read as a child?

She tells us: 'I could not be satisfied with the things around me. I was constantly living in a world of my own creation, and was quite content to have no companions that I might be left to my own musings and imagine scenes in which I was chief actress; conceive what a character novels would give to these Utopias. I was early supplied with them by those who kindly sought to gratify my appetite for reading and of course I made use of the materials they supplied for building my castles in the air, although I was slow to read because I enjoyed playing more.'

It seems as though it was not until her brother Isaac, whom she adored, was given a pony and cared less and less to play with his young sister, that she turned to reading for consolation. 'Books became a passion with me, I read everything I could lay hands on. [ ... ] I found passionate delight and total absorption in Aesop's Fables which opened up a new world to my imagination. It was given to me by an old friend of the family, an elderly gentleman, who came to visit and brought me a book from time to time. I was very grateful as we did not have many books at home: the Bible, Shakespeare, Pilgrim's Progress and Joe Miller's Jest book being among the few.'

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