George Eliot: A Critic's Biography

by Barbara Hardy

Not for 'promises to present the distilled understanding and insight of Professor Hardy's lifetime engagement with George Eliot...strengths lie in the sensitive close reading that distinguishes Barbara Hardy's criticism and in the fascinating links and echoes between life and fiction that her comprehensive knowledge of the novelist's writing enables her to find...the proposed book would be accessible to a wide general readership and Barbara Hardy's established reputation would be a selling point in itself.' Readers report from John Rignall (Reader at University of Warwick and editor of The Oxford Reader's Companion to George Eliot) 'a genuinely interesting contribution to George Eliot scholarship by one of the leading postwar critics of Victorian fiction. The conception is bold and arresting... it reads excellently but its clarity is also vivid, effective and engaging. It wears its evident deep learning, and informed familiarity with Eliot's world, lightlyàIt manages to integrate three to give an animated sense of Eliot's personality as a woman, an intellectual, and a writer; it evokes successfully the milieu in which she lived and worked; and it offers genuine illumination in relation to the fiction.' Professor Rick Rylance, Deputy Head of English Department, University of Exeter (and former Chair of Council for College and University English) Review of Thomas Hardy by 'The community of critics and readers interested in Victorian studies can always expect Barbara Hardy to come up with an interesting perspective on texts we all thought had been read thoroughly into familiarityàThe beauty of this book is also that a whole range of people could read it, from A level students to Hardy specialists.'

Genres: Biography

192 pages, Paperback

First published October 9, 2006

About the author

Barbara Hardy, FRSL, FBA (née Nathan; 27 June 1924 – 12 February 2016) was a British literary scholar, author, and poet. As an academic, she specialised in the literature of the 19th Century. From 1965 to 1970, she was Professor of English at Royal Holloway College, University of London. Then, from 1970 to 1989, she was Professor of English Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Hardy was born on 27 June 1924 in Swansea, Wales. She was educated at Swansea High School for Girls, a grammar school. In February 1941, she experienced the Swansea Blitz. She studied at University College London, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1947 and a Master of Arts (MA) degree in 1949.

In 1962, Hardy was awarded the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize by the British Academy for her monograph The Novels of George Elliot. In 1997, she was awarded the Sagittarius Prize by the Society of Authors for her novel London Lovers. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 1997, and a Senior Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 2006.

(from Wikipedia)