DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Title

The Thirty-sixth George Eliot Memorial Lecture, 2007: Scenes and After

Authors

Graham Handley

Date of this Version

2008

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 39 (2008)

Comments

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

Abstract

The Folio Society's cosmetic edition of George Eliot's fiction, which was published in 1999, has no place on any spine of its seven-volume set for Scenes of Clerical Life. A search of the actual texts, however, reveals George Eliot's first published fiction bedded together with Silas Marner, the pair sharing a neat introduction by Jill Paton-Walsh. I pondered at the time if spine exclusion meant that Scenes was just too minor for remark, or whether, as is the way with publishers, getting things wrong can be ignored once the books are on the shelves or, as with the Folio edition, part of the decor. No furniture so charming as books, observed Sydney Smith, a thought echoed by Anthony Powell as a novel-heading in his Books Do Furnish a Room. You who are here today will know, of course, that Scenes is much more than a minor work, since you have lived through most of 2007 and have enjoyed constant association with those three stories. Merely reading the pamphlet on Scenes Revisited was quite an education for me, since I hadn't realized that Marian Evans shared a location, though not of course in time, with Larry Grayson.

But today I must be serious and shut that door on frivolity. And I hope that you will forgive me for staying in Scenes for a while before I move on to 'After Scenes', because the correspondence of Lewes and Marian Evans with John Blackwood provides interesting pointers to what is to come. Lewes 's summary of the series says that it 'will consist of tales and sketches illustrative of the actual life of our country clergy about a quarter of a century ago; but solely in its human and not at all in its theological aspect' .1 He goes on to say that it will represent them 'like any other class with the humours, sorrows, and troubles of other men' (II, 269). And of the author he observes 'He [note that He, since it is George preparing the way, so to speak, for George] 'begged me particularly to add that . . . the tone throughout will be sympathetic and not at all antagonistic' (II, 269). Lewes, business manager, initiator, fully supportive, always adroit, mentions his 'clerical friend' and then has to correct the implication later by telling Blackwood 'I am not at liberty to remove the veil of anonymity - even as regards social position' (II, 277), this, ironically, on Marian's thirty-seventh birthday, 22 November 1856. Just over a couple of months later, on 4 February 1857, Marian writes to Blackwood naively suggesting that 'a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation. Perhaps, therefore, it will be well to give you my prospective name, as a tub to throw to the whale in case of curious inquiries' (II, 292). She signs herself George Eliot, unaware that the whale of the press, the sharpness of local memory and the crude derivations of gossip would destroy the privacy she sought to guard. The important thing is that dialogue directly with John Blackwood has begun, and it is my contention that this influences one of two aspects of 'After Scenes' that I want to examine today. The first has to do with a structure used in much of her following fiction: the second with the clerical scenes in that fiction and their particular significance.