The Letters of George Henry Lewes, Vol. III, with New George Eliot Letters ed. by William Baker (review)

aging to maintain a cordial relationshipwith her former lover. Her correspondence with Chateaubriand was so intimate that when she published portions ofit in her autobiography, itcaused a sensation in the French literaryworld, provoking Barbey d'Aurevilly to attack her personally for revealing that the revered author ofLe Génie du christianisme had feet ofclay. (Barbey's villification ofAllan led her son Marcus to challenge the latter to a duel, but readers will have to read Hansen's book to learn of the outcome of this bizarre affair.) Suffice it to say that Allan lived an exceedingly rich life, full ofcontroversy and adventure, and died well satisfied that it had been worthwhile. In a letter written late in life to Sainte-Beuve, she affirmed: "Sije rencontraissur mon chemin unefilUdélicate, spirituelle etforte,je lui dirais de faire commej'aifait, de suivre nobUment la nature" (261). Hansen's book convinces one that Hortense Allan was a significant figure in nineteenth-century French literary history. There can be no question that she deserves to be better known today, both as an early crusader for French women's rights, and as awriter and thinkerwho knew and interacted with some ofthe most important authors ofher time. It is certainly to be hoped that more studies will be made of this remarkable woman. William Baker, ed. The Letters ofGeorge Henry Lewes, VoL III, with New George Eliot Letters. English Literary Studies Monograph series, No. 79. Victoria, BC: University ofVictoria, 1999. 189p. Carol A. Martin Boise State University This newvolume ofletters ofGeorge Henry Lewes and George Eliot, like the first two, is edited by the indefatigable William Baker, editor ofGeorge Eliot—George Henry Lewes Studies and the four volumes of the George Eliot notebooks in the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library (1976), and author of George Eliot andJudaism (1975). In these and other works, Baker has made major contributions to scholarship on various nineteenth-century British writers, but especially to our knowledge ofwhat must surely be one ofthe most significant English literary partnerships of the nineteenth, or perhaps any other, century. The letters adopt die format of the 9-volume George Eliot Letters published by Yale University Press between 1954 and 1978, edited by Gordon S. Haight, and the first two volumes of The Letters ofGeorge Henry Lewes, edited by Baker and published in 1995 in the University ofVictoria monograph series. With the nine volumes from Yale and Baker's previous two volumes from the University ofVictoria Press, one might wonder ifthere could be much significant SPRING 2001 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 105 correspondence left undiscovered. This volume makes it clear that the answer is, emphatically, yes. No mere catch-all for the odd memo thanking someone for a cheque received or issuingan invitation to dinner, volume 3 of TheLettersofGeorge Henry Lewesincludes lengthy letters from both Lewes and George Eliot, especially from the 1870s, that give insight into the years when their company was eagerly sought by "Society"; years when Eliot's longest and most complex novels, MiddUmarch and Daniel Deronda, appeared; years in which their increasing financial security was accompanied by declining health. The letters depict all this and much more, including insights into their personalities as they grew older. One set ofletters presents the George Henry Lewes who delighted in comic anecdotes. He recorded many ofthem in his (alas, mostly unpublished) journals — forwhat audience, I have always wondered. This volume suggests an answer. Perhaps he jotted them down in his journals so he would have them ready for the next letter to his friend Edward Roben Bulwer-Lytton, who served as Viceroy ofIndia from 1876 to 1880. Baker prints thirteen of Lewes' previously unpublished letters to Lytton, found in the India Office records at the British Library. In several letters, accompanying their discussion of politics and personal matters, Lewes recounts what he calls "my stories" (letter 597), often in exchange for "stories" that Lytton has sent him. In letter 599, for example, he thanks Lytton for his photograph in his "royal robes" which "threw our maid Elizabeth into ecstasies 'How very kingly, Lord Lytton looks, Sir.'" This comment reminds Lewes ofa story about the maid ofa friend seeing Louis Napoleon lying in state "in military uniform and...