George Eliot (Marian Evans) as a writer of fiction is the central theme of this literary life. The events of Eliot's formative years, together with the growth of her renowned intellect, are outlined, giving us an insight into the creative talent responsible for some of the best-known novels in the English-language. Her views on other novels and novelists are detailed and we follow the development of her craft as writer as it evolved from the faithful representation of everyday life, as in Scenes of Clerical Life, through to the more complex considerations of Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda.

Preface - List of Abbreviations - Warwickshire 1819-1849 - London 1850-1857 - Critical Writings/Scenes of Clerical Life (1858) - Adam Bede (1858) and Silas Marner (1861) - The Woman Question/The Mill on the Floss (1860) - The 1860s/Romola (1863) and The Spanish Gypsy (1868) - Felix Holt (1866) and Middlemarch (1871-72) - The 1870s/Daniel Deronda (1876) - Notes - Further Reading - Index