While Felix Holt the Radical was being written there was a transformation in the atmosphere surrounding further parliamentary reform in Britain. In March 1865, when George Eliot began the novel, the Liberal Prime Minister Palmerston remained cautious…
In late 1832 Great Britain was preparing for a special General Election. A Reform Bill passed in June had extended voting rights to the middle class, and parliamentary constituencies were re-distributed to enfranchise some of the larger industrial…
'My sketches [ ... ] of Churchmen [ ... ] are drawn from close observation of them in real life, and not at all from hearsay or the descriptions of novelists.' George Eliot 'Mr Tryan is not a portrait of any clergyman, living or dead'. George Eliot…
