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The Genesis of Felix Holt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Fred C. Thomson
Fred C. Thomson*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, Conn
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Extract

Commentators on Felix Holt, the Radical have generally assumed that George Eliot started with a political novel in mind. What has never been sufficiently considered is that the genesis of Felix Holt was rather in the adulterous intrigue of Mrs. Transome with Lawyer Jermyn and the bitter consequences of this transgression to herself and their son Harold. The politics, and even the role of Felix himself, were probably afterthoughts.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 74 , Issue 5 , December 1959 , pp. 576 - 584
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1959

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References

1 MS Journal, 1861–77 (Tinker Collection, Yale Univ. Library).

2 The George Eliot Letters, ed. Gordon S. Haight, 7 vols. (New Haven, 1954–55), iii, 133. Hereafter referred to as GE Letters.

3 Bygones Worth Remembering, 2 vols. (London, 1905), i, 92.

4 John W. Cross, ed., George Eliot's Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals, 3 vols. (Edinburgh and London, 1885), iii, 41 ft“.

5 Journal. Philip Buckham, The Theatre of the Greeks (1825). The 4th edition of this work was thoroughly revised by John W. Donaldson, whose name replaces Buckham's on all subsequent editions. Julius Leopold Klein, Geschichle des Dramas, 15 vols. (Leipzig, 1865–76). It is uncertain which drama of Aeschylus George Eliot was reading.

6 MS Notebook (Tinker Collection, Yale Univ. Library).

7 See Principles of Political Economy, 2 vols. (New York, 1864), i, 426 n.,428 n.

8 British Parliament, House of Commons, Report from the Select Committee on Agriculture (1833).

9 Times, 17 Sept. 1832, 3d.

10 See Times, 20 Sept. 1831, lb, for an advertisement by a borough candidate. There is an advertisement for a county candidate on 22 Sept., lb. The “raving” of the Tories for Robert Peel's Currency Bill of 1819 is reported in a leader on 24 Sept. 1832, 2e. Sir Walter Scott's obituary appears 25 Sept. 1832,2cd.

11 Times, 3 Oct. 1832, 2d. George Eliot quotes part of this passage in a letter to John Blackwood, 27 April 1866 (GE Letters, iv, 248).

12 Times, 8 Oct. 1832, 3c.

13 Times, 20 Oct. 1832, 3e. 14 Times, 9 Nov. 1832, 2de.

15 An account of the trial of the Nuneaton rioters is given in The Times, 9 April 1833, 3c-e. The chief resemblances of this riot (which occurred 21 Dec. 1832) to that in Felix Holt are the pelting of a magistrate during his reading of the Riot Act, the adjournment of the poll, and the calling in of the militia; but George Eliot does not seem to have attempted any close recreation of the event, which she had witnessed as a girl of thirteen. See Cross, George Eliot's Life, i, 27–29.

16 See Bamford, Passages from the Life of a Radical (London, n.d.), pp. 48–53, 89–90, 245–247. The reference at this point to Bamford, whose book George Eliot had finished by 28 May, suggests that the Quarry had been commenced before that date, and that the extracts from Mill (which are from footnotes citing collateral treatments of the subject) may have been derived from a casual consultation of the Political Economy prior to a more systematic rereading. This theory is supported by George Eliot's flat statement that she had “just begun again” the Political Economy, and by the fact that the passages first quoted in the Quarry occur towards the end of Volume I, which she finished 27 June. It seems likelier that she was studying the Agriculture Report and The Times before 28 May.

17 This identical note occurs in the Quarry for Middle-march, ed. Anna Theresa Kitchel (Berkeley, 1950), p. 34.

18 The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature of the Year 1832 (London, 1833), pp. 299–300, 304.

19 A leader on Church Reform (Times, 11 Jan. 1833, 2e) says that the English people “are well pleased to have parish clergymen maintained in the condition of respectable gentlemen, whose education has been costly, and their habits those of liberal society. They do not, however, tolerate bloated pluraliste, who never visit a flock but at shearing time, and who relieve neither the spiritual nor temporal wants of their brethren.” Another leader (Times, 15 Jan. 1833, 4b) reads, “We have discovered that humble curates are inadequately paid, that stall-fed dignitaries are at once too rich and idle, and last, of all things on earth most wonderful, that tithes can be, and ought to be, no longer borne.” See also GE Letters, iv, 248. The issue of Church Reform, which looms so large in the notes, is not emphasized in Felix Holt, being treated more humorously than otherwise through the Rev. Mr. Lingon. See, for example, Chapter 2.

20 See Times, 18 Jan. 1833, 4b; 5cd.

21 Journal. She had previously read the Political Economy in 1852. See GE Letters, ii, 68.

22 MS Journal xi, 1 April 1859 to 1 Jan. 1866 (Yale Univ. Library).

23 The MS of Felix Holt is in the British Museum. The present study is based on microfilms.

24 Political Economy, i, 445.

25 Journal, 25 June. The reign of George III would coincide with some of the earlier events of the Transome history.

26 British Parliament, House of Commons, Report from Select Committee on Bribery at Elections (London, 1835), ##1603-04, 1612, 1654, 1657. References are to minutes of evidence,

27 See Daniel Neal, History of the Puritans, 3 vols. (London, 1837), i, 421.

28 History of the Puritans, ii, 6.

29 Bribery at Elections, #394 (the witness was not Park es, but a John James), 3953, 3991, 4001, 4116, e.g. 4111, 4192 ff.

80 Bribery at Elections, #4202. Cf. the trades-union man's speech: “And then they cry out—'The Church is in danger,' —'the poor man's Church.' ” (Ch. 30)

81 Bribery at Elections, #4208.

32 Cf. Johnson's appeal to the Sproxton colliers, that “if there's any of you who are my neighbours who want … a copy of the King's likeness—why I'm your man” (Cf. 11).

33 Bribery at Elections, ##6774, 6792, 6861–66, 6901, 7058, 7074, 7104, 1612, 1642–44. Harold Transome's election expenses were only #8000-#9000 (Ch. 34).

34 Bribery at Elections, ##1646-54.

35 Probably after 7 Sept., when she and Lewes returned from a trip to the Continent. See GE Letters, iv, 200 n.

38 Dorothea Brooke, it will be recalled, was similarly a latecomer to Middlemarch, having been initially the heroine of a separate story. See Joan Bennett, George Eliot (Cambridge, 1948), pp. 160–162; Gordon S. Haight, ed., Middle-march (Boston, 1956), pp. xiv-xv.