John Rignall (ed), "Oxford Reader's Companion to George Eliot"

Beautifully illustrated with 30 integrated black-and-white pictures, here are over 500 A-Z entries on the life and work of George Eliot.

Written by an international team of scholars, the Companion offers a wealth of biographical and historical information that illuminates Eliot's work. There are entries on all her novels (including plot synopses), stories, and important essays, plus coverage of poetry and translations, letters and journals, and notebooks and manuscripts. A long entry surveys her life, and shorter entries discuss her family, friends, and acquaintances, the places she lived and the countries she visited, and the writers, thinkers, artists, and composers whose work she knew. The volume also includes extensive cross-referencing and suggestions for further reading, a chronology, a bibliography, an alphabetical list of fictional characters, and maps of both fictional settings and the author's extensive travels.

In sum, this is the first reference work to do justice to the extraordinary range and depth of George Eliot's intellectual life.

From the Back Cover
This Oxford Reader's Companion is the most comprehensive guide ever published to the life and work of George Eliot, providing in easily accessible form a rich diversity of detailed information and a wide range of critical insights into her fiction and its contexts. It is the first reference work to do justice to the extraordinary range and depth of George Eliot's intellectual life.

Contemporary critical approaches to her fiction are discussed in detail, and there are entries on the formal and thematic features of her novels, on their initial reception, and on the fluctuating fortunes of the author's posthumous reputation. A long entry surveys her life, and there are shorter entries on her family, friends, and acquaintances on the places she lived in and the countries she visited, on the writers, thinkers, artists, and composers from different cultures whose work she knew, and on broad contextual subjects such as philosophy and science, France and Germany, music and the visual arts, society, and the 'Woman Question'.

• Over 500 A -Z entries written by an international team of specialist contributors
• extensive cross-referencing and suggestions for further reading
• plot synopses and publishing history
• entries on all George Eliot's novels, stories, and important essays, plus coverage of poetry and translations, letters and journals, and notebooks and manuscripts
• beautifully illustrated with 30 integrated black-and-white pictures
• useful additional matter includes a chronology, a bibliography, an alphabetical list of fictional characters, and maps of both fictional settings and the author's extensive travels
• subject index listing entries by topic

From Booklist
Here is a volume providing an indepth and detailed view of George Eliot's intellectual life and her work; her family and friends; her travels; her major themes; her letters, journals, notebooks, and manuscripts; and her career as a writer. The intent is "to situate her work in the broad intellectual and cultural context of the 19th century." Reflecting Eliot's erudition and her knowledge of seven languages besides English, coverage extends beyond national borders and even includes her influence on later thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir and Sigmund Freud.

The volume begins with an impressive list of contributors. A "Classified Contents List" groups entry headings under major topics such as "George Eliot's Life" and "George Eliot's Works." The more than 500 entries are arranged alphabetically, from Addison, Joseph, the celebrated essayist to whose works Eliot referred several times in her letters, to Young, Edward, an English poet who was a favorite source of quotations. More general entries, such as Science and Theatre, discuss how various aspects of the prevailing culture intersected with the writer's life and work. Crossreferencing is indicated by an asterisk as well as see also references.

Entries range in length from one paragraph (Cambridge, Fraser's Magazine, Utilitarianism) to several pages. Among the longest are those for major works, such as Felix Holt, the Radical and Scenes of Clerical Life. These entries include discussions of composition, publication, illustrations, reception, plot, and critical approaches. Bibliographic references follow many of the entries. Other helpful features are two maps depicting places associated with Eliot's fiction and her travels, a selected general bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and an alphabetical list of characters, identifying the novels, short fiction, or poems in which they appear. This list is important because there are no entries for characters; instead, characters are discussed within entries for the pertinent works. Finally, a chronology shows Eliot's life in relation to historical and literary events.

This volume should be considered a significant resource for academic and large public libraries.

Tags: Literature, LiteraryCriticism, LiteratureReference, 19CEngland

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