George Eliot

George Eliot’s first biographer, Mathilde Blind (1841-1896), was herself a poet and writer. Born in Germany, Blind moved with her family to London when she was still a child, and it was there that she established her literary reputation, writing poetry, essays, biographies, and a novel. In 1883, three years after Eliot’s death, Blind’s George Eliot was published. It is the first full-length biography of Eliot; while biographical articles about her had appeared in 1881, Blind’s work corrected mistakes and enlarged the knowledge of Eliot’s early life. Indeed, what sets her biography apart is the extent of private sources that Blind sought out, returning to Eliot’s home and engaging with family and friends to accrue extensive information hitherto unknown to the public. Organized first around her personal life and latterly around her works, this biography will interest Eliot scholars, students of nineteenth-century criticism, and scholars of feminism.