Book Description

This richly enjoyable biography of the great Victorian novelist reminds us how truly revolutionary was George Eliot... [Ashton] provides luminously sane readings of the marvellous novels.

A.N. Wilson, Evening Standard

Excellent... Ashton cites Eliot's achievement in a literary landscape which moves from Scott and George Sand to Dickens, Tennyson and Browning... a fluent, vivid book... it makes one thrill again to the breadth of Eliot's genius and the passionate, vulnerable nature that accompanied her wide-ranging mind.

Jenny Uglow, Independent on Sunday

An extremely impressive work... the George Eliot who emerges from Professor Ashton's book is a remarkable woman of exceptional integrity whose life expresses the spirit of the Victorian age, even as it goes against the very grain of it.

Susie Boyt, Sunday Express