CONTENTS.
| PAGE | |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| Introductory | [1] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| Childhood and Early Home | [9] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| Youthful Studies and Friendships | [22] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| Translation of Strauss and Feuerbach—Tour on the Continent | [44] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| The "Westminster Review" | [59] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| George Henry Lewes | [77] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| Scenes of Clerical Life | [91] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| Adam Bede | [106] |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| The Mill on the Floss | [123] |
| CHAPTER X. | |
| Silas Marner | [137] |
| CHAPTER XI. | |
| Romola | [148] |
| CHAPTER XII. | |
| Her Poems | [161] |
| CHAPTER XIII. | |
| Felix Holt and Middlemarch | [175] |
| CHAPTER XIV. | |
| Daniel Deronda | [192] |
| CHAPTER XV. | |
| Last Years | [204] |
GEORGE ELIOT.
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
Speaking of the contributions made to literature by her own sex, George Eliot, in a charming essay written in 1854, awards the palm of intellectual pre-eminence to the women of France. "They alone," says the great English author, "have had a vital influence on the development of literature. For in France alone the mind of woman has passed, like an electric current, through the language, making crisp and definite what is elsewhere heavy and blurred; in France alone, if the writings of women were swept away, a serious gap would be made in the national history."