Wonderful Worlds of Mary Ann Evans

It is hard to believe that Mary Ann Evans (aka George Eliot) & Charles Dickens were contemporaries. While Dickens was more popular with his mainly black & white characterisations, Eliot dived deep into the psyche of the human soul, exploring its variegated hues.

Starting with the trilogy of novellas, the self explanatory "Scenes of Clerical Life", she took up next the idealistic affection between brothers  Adam & Seth in "Adam Bede". Moving on to another aspect of sibling love, she wrote "The Mill on the Floss", movingly subtitled "In their death they were not divided" referring to the siblings Tom & Maggie, whose pure love, this novel celebrates. This was followed by her shortest novel, the enchanting "Silas Marner", where the unbreakable bond between the old Silas & the foundling Eppie is described. These are especially relevant in the current times, when only romantic love is written about.

After these, she suddenly dived into her only historical novel, "Romola", set in 15th century Florence at the time of Savonarola. Though the least read of her novels, she herself wrote "There is no book of mine about which I more thoroughly feel that I swear by every sentence as having being written with my best blood." 

Then she wrote about a political election at the time of the Reform Bill of 1832, called "Felix Holt, The Radical." It is curious to note the similarity between Felix & Dickens' Stephen Blackpool in his "Hard Times", both idealistic men of the working class.

These were her preparations for her magnum opus, "Middlemarch", one of the greatest novels with a panoramic sweep of English Society. The heroine, Dorothea Brooke, is introduced in these unforgettable lines, emphasising her spiritual beauty. "She had that kind of beauty, which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress. Her hand & wrist were so finely formed that she could wear sleeves not less bare of style  than those in which the Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian Painters." After reading the novel, the reader may feel like Frank Kermode, who wrote that she is "a missionless St. Teresa (of Avila) or an Antigone (of Sophocles) with no brother to bury."

In her final novel, "Daniel Deronda", Eliot simultaneously explores the protagonist's delving into his Semitic roots & the "Spoiled Child", Gwendolen Harleth's spirit broken by her willfully chosen husband.

This is the writer about whom Virginia Woolf wrote "When asked to speak about women & fiction, I may say a few remarks about Jane Austen; a tribute to the Brontes; & a respectful allusion to George Eliot." This respect is due to the fact that Eliot was more widely read than Austen or the Brontes & moved in intellectual circles all her life. It is a pity that now more readers do not have the literary stamina to read & enjoy her novels.