Victorian Studies

Burton, Antoinette M., 1961-
George Eliot and the British Empire (review)
Victorian Studies - Volume 45, Number 2, Winter 2003, pp. 334-336

Indiana University Press

Antoinette M. Burton - George Eliot and the British Empire (review) - Victorian Studies 45:2 Victorian Studies 45.2 (2003) 334-336 George Eliot and the British Empire, by Nancy Henry; pp. xi + 182. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, £35.00, $50.00. Halfway through her thoughtful study of George Eliot's relationship to Victorian imperialism, Nancy Henry tells an intriguing story of scholarly omission. In his 1955 edition of The George Eliot Letters, Gordon Haight included an appendix which contained the literary receipts of G. H. Lewes, Eliot's longtime companion, but he did not include a list of stocks and bonds held by the couple. Given the fact that Eliot amassed a small fortune through investment in a wide variety of colonial shareholdings at the height of her professional career, Haight's editorial selectivity is intriguing. Henry speculates that because Eliot's investment profits were earned through speculation rather than directly from writing, Haight may have considered them...