Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
George Eliot: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Adam Bede
Appendix A: Realism, Morality, and Fiction
- George Eliot’s Early Attitudes to Fiction
- Letter to Maria Lewis, 16 March 1839
- Letter to Sarah Hennell, 9 February 1849
- George Eliot and George Henry Lewes on the Nature and Function of the Novel
- From Lewes’s “Recent Novels: French and English,” Fraser’s Magazine (December 1847)
- From Lewes’s Review of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth and Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, Westminster Review (April 1853)
- From Eliot’s Reviews of Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho!, Geraldine Jewsbury’s Constance Herbert, and Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship,
Westminster Review (July 1855), and Leader (July 1855) - Realism
- From John Ruskin’s Modern Painters (1856)
- Eliot’s Response to Ruskin, Westminster Review (April 1856)
- From George Eliot’s Review of Wilhelm Heinrich
Riehl’s Die Naturgeschichte des deutschen Volkes als Grundlage einer deutschen Social Politik,
Westminster Review (July 1856)
Appendix B: The Genesis and Publication of Adam Bede: From George Eliot’s Letters and Journals
Appendix C: The Trial and Execution of Mary Voce, 1802
- An Account of the Experience and Happy Death of Mary Voce
- The Life, Character, Behaviour at the Place of Execution and Dying Speech of Mary Voce
- A full and particular Account of the Life,Trial, and Behaviour of Mary Voce
Appendix D: The Reception of Adam Bede
- From a Letter from Jane Welsh Carlyle, 20 February 1859
- From a Letter from Charles Dickens, 10 July 1859
- The Times (12 April 1859)
- Bentley’s Quarterly Review (July 1859)
- The Saturday Review (26 February 1859)
- The London Quarterly Review (July 1861)
- Henry James, The Atlantic Monthly (October 1866)
Appendix E: The Religious Background
- Methodism: From the Journals of John Wesley
- Women Preachers
- Saint Paul
- From John Wesley’s Letters (1761, 1769)
- From the Journal of Ann Gilbert, 1771
- Sarah’s Crosby’s Experience, 1768
- Elizabeth Evans and Mary Voce, 1802
- Marriage for Women Preachers
- Contemporary Religious Thought
- From David Friederich Strauss, The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (1835-36)
- From Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity (1841)
- From Charles Hennell, An Inquiry into the Origin of Christianity (1838)
- From Herbert Spencer, First Principles (1862)
- Eliot’s Religious Beliefs
- From a Letter to Maria Lewis, 18 August 1838
- From a Letter to Her Father, 28 February 1842
- From Eliot’s Review of Works by John Cumming, Westminster Review (October 1855)
- From a Letter to François d’Albert-Durade, 6 December 1859
- From a Letter to Mme Eugène Bodichon (Barbara Leigh Smith), 26 December 1860
Select Bibliography and Further Reading