George Eliot

Just back from my wonderful German holiday and train trip to Dresden, I was delighted to find that on the new TV channel 'True Entertainment' last evening began a two part film of 'Middlemarch' George Eliot's classic novel based on the Coventry of the time. John Prest's 'The Industrial Revolution in Coventry' has a closing appendix 'The Historical Value of Middlemarch' with Stivichall and Baginton thought to have been the inspiration for 'Lowick' (perhaps a combination of both). For such a long novel the film must only cover a part and seems to centre on the relationship between Dorothea (the somewhat 'blue-stocking' niece of Brooke) who marries the seemingly cold-hearted scholarly clergyman Casaubon. Edited by member, 28th Sep 2014 4:02 pm

My wife's uncle, who was born and educated in Nuneaton still insists that it is that town and not Coventry that is the setting of the novel. This in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He is on much firmer ground with "Scenes of Clerical Life" . That definitely is set in Nuneaton (Milby).

Yes, I agree about Nuneaton and 'Scenes of Clerical Life' - I consider that one of the most readable and has the most vivid and pleasant characterisation of all of Eliot's works. However, If you look at John Prest's 'Appendix' I think Coventry scores over Nuneaton, though more than possible that she used characters and places from both. I think it is in Tom and Maggie Tulliver, 'The Mill on the Floss' the 'Red Deeps' is said to have been a hollow in part of Foleshill. As a girl my mother had the children's edition 'Tom & Maggie Tulliver' so that became my introduction too to George Eliot. I would often go down Warwick Row and look at the house where Mary Ann went to School, it later became a café, then an estate agents.

This evening (Sunday 10th Nov) at 9.00pm on BBC4 there is a programme about George Eliot's life. I will watch. So Forum members ENJOY! Edited by member, 10th Nov 2019 3:08 pm

DBC's wife's uncle is not alone. In 1888 there was published a book called Scenes from 'George Eliot' Country by S. Parkinson who thinks "It is a little singular that George Eliot did not draw more upon her experience at Coventry than she has done..... But the little she did take from the 'city of the three spires' was at all events of a high order for it yielded Rufus Lyon [ in Felix Holt]..". Parkinson's chapter on Middlemarch makes no reference to Coventry - or, for that matter, Nuneaton. This is very much in contrast with modern commentators such as Graham Handley (George Eliot's Midlands: Passion Exile , 1991) who is quite sure that "Middlemarch is based on Coventry".

Dear All, With the 200 year anniversary of Mary Ann Evans [George Eliot] birthday almost here, we wished to highlight the new guide to the George Eliot collection at Coventry Archives. To access this please click on the link below from the Coventry Archives webpage: George Eliot finding aid Ali Wells, Local studies and Archaeology curator has also been working hard on updating the George Eliot section in the History gallery. Many items from this George Eliot collection have been produced and are now on display, until April 2020. She has also secured a short term loan of the original manuscript of "Middlemarch" from the British Library. This is only for a short period - for further details please click on the link to the webpage: George Eliot in the History Gallery With thanks, Victoria Northridge Archivist Manager

She also wrote about Coventry: Oh, the dismal weather and the dismal country, and the dismal people. I am determined to sell everything I possess and be a stranger and a foreigner on the earth for evermore. She came back once to visit her brother. They didn't see eye to eye. They never spoke again for forty years.

There is an illustration entitled " 'Middlemarch' - Great Butcher Row, drawn by Nathaniel Troughton " in the Kenneth Richardson book "Twentieth Century Coventry" which would back up this opinion that "Middlemarch" is based on Coventry.

George Eliot did not name anything by name as far as I know, and everyone is guessing, but she did mention and have meetings with John Sibree from Vicar Street, the same guy that had the military bands thrown out of Coventry. What she did do was describe the countryside around Warwickshire at that time. But it was a man's world, that's why she wrote in a man's name, she was a brilliant scholar and musician, way out of her time, and she was Jewish, that didn't fit in with Coventry. We had refused to have them in the country for centuries, way back. We could argue about her for years, she was so complex.