The Novels Of George Eliot, A Review: Insightful literary criticism from one of the original masters.

By Henry James

Henry James was born on 15 April 1843 and is regarded as one of the great literary figures of 19th Century writing. Born in New York, he moved between there and Europe, being tutored in Geneva, London, Paris, Bologna, and Bonn. At the age of 19 he briefly attended Harvard Law School, but preferred reading literature to studying law and settled the next year in England. He became a British subject in 1915, a year before his death on 28th February 1916. As well as an outstanding author he was also a dramatist, travel writer and most passionately, a literary critic. He advocated that all writers should be allowed the greatest possible freedom in presenting their view of the world. His voluminous writing as a literary critic was large in scope and textured in its depth. In this volume he writes on the famed Victorian novelist George Eliot. We also offer a wide selection of short stories and novels from Henry James. Search ‘Henry James A Word To The Wise’ to see our full collection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Word To The Wise
• Release date: Aug 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781780009261

Henry James

Henry James (1843-1916) was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and non-fiction. He spent most of his life in Europe, and much of his work regards the interactions and complexities between American and European characters. Among his works in this vein are The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Bostonians (1886), and The Ambassadors (1903). Through his influence, James ushered in the era of American realism in literature. In his lifetime he wrote 12 plays, 112 short stories, 20 novels, and many travel and critical works. He was nominated three times for the Noble Prize in Literature.

Book preview

The Novels of George Eliot, A Review by Henry James

Henry James (1843-1916) is today remembered as the most prolific of American novelists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.  

Undoubtedly the quality of his writing has ensured his name is enshrined in the American literary tradition and of American heritage in general.

James however was a committed Anglophile and lived most of his life as an expatriate in Europe.  Many of his novels juxtapose the Old World with the New World. Classics such as The Portrait of a Lady, Daisy Miller and The Ambassadors, display the encounter between American and European cultures and mentalities. They highlight the differences between the two worlds through following the experiences of American expatriates in Europe.

As a critic James was unafraid to venture into reviews and essays of those other literary giants around him.  These together with his short stories and, of course, classic novels, make Henry James an author to be not only admired but read, and read often.

Index of Contents

The Novels of George Eliot, A Review

Henry James – A Short Biography

Henry James – A concise Bibliography

The Novels of George Eliot, A Review

This essay was written in 1866 before Middlemarch or Daniel Deronda had appeared. The former work was published in 1871-72 and the latter book in 1876. It was afterwards discussed at length by Mr. James in Daniel Deronda: a Conversation, originally contributed to the Atlantic Monthly, December, 1876, and reprinted in 1888 in Partial Portraits.

The critic's first duty in the presence of an author's collective works is to seek out some key to his method, some utterance of his literary convictions, some indication of his ruling theory. The amount of labour involved in an inquiry of this kind will depend very much upon the author. In some cases the critic will find express declarations; in other cases he will have to content himself with conscientious inductions. In a writer so fond of digressions as George Eliot, he has reason to expect that broad evidences of artistic faith will not be wanting. He finds in Adam Bede the following passage: 

"Paint us an angel if you can, with a floating violet robe and a face paled by the celestial light; paint us yet oftener a Madonna, turning her mild face upward, and opening her arms to welcome the divine glory; but do not impose on us any æsthetic rules which shall banish from the region of art those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, those heavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pot-house, those rounded backs and stupid weather-beaten faces that have bent over the spade and done the rough work of the world, those homes with their tin cans, their brown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions. In this world there are so many of these common, coarse people, who have no picturesque, sentimental wretchedness. It is so needful we should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy, and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes.... 

"There are few prophets in the world, few sublimely beautiful women, few heroes. I can't afford to give all my love and reverence to such rarities; I want a great deal of those feelings for my every-day fellowmen, especially for