Marian Evans may have written many a Victorian novel under the name George Eliot, but she also has a life that could never be chronicled in one-- too scandalous for the mainstream Victorian audience by far. George Eliot in Love chronicles Evans's life with an emphasis on her relationships especially romantic and other close personal connections.

The book starts out somewhat roughly, soaring through what sound like very painful childhood years. Evans was unattractive (do a Google Image Search, and you'll see I speak the truth), and her mother neglected her in favor of her prettier and more feminine sister. She didn't have very many friends, either. I imagine the reason Maddox has to move through this so quickly, though, is that there's not a lot of source material to draw on, no voluminous letters of later life.

The book really starts to shine when Evans becomes a writer and starts to move away from her family. Maddox offers several speculations on early romantic relationships-- or at least, sexual ones. Being both unattractive and very intelligent, Evans found few men interested in her. She eventually fell in a with very intellectual and controversial crowd; with many spouses in affairs or open relationships and even some group marriages, these are not the Victorians you read about, not even in Eliot's own novels. But despite some early heartbreak (and even breaking a heart herself) and being rejected by a man after his wife and mistress objected to a third woman being around, Evans found love with George Henry Lewes. Lewes was himself married, but his wife had had multiple children by another man, yet Lewes could not obtain a divorce; having allowed the children to be knowingly registered under his own name, he had legally "consented" to the adultery and thus could not use adultery as grounds for divorce. Lewes was a bit of rake, though, and it's staggering to see the way her relationship with him was seen in a bad light, hypocritically so by the some of the intellectual crowd she ran with. The two of them seemed to never really care, though, and were married in every way that matters.

A couple points stuck out at me: the absolute and terrible fixation of Evans's unattractiveness. Henry James said she was the ugliest woman he'd ever met (though he he claimed to be in love with her anyway!), and her obituary even mentions how unattractive she was. Alas, though, I doubt that society has progressed much in this regard. The other thing is Maddox's occasional (and odd) mention of Evans's female admirers. I think she was trying to do something with homosexuality (implying that other women may have been in love with her, though not the reverse), but if so, she doesn't really spell it out, and the moments end up seeming isolated and odd.

Maddox packs a lot into this small book; it's filled with anecdotes that I aggravated Hayley (who has never read an Eliot novel) by sharing with her time and again. Yet at 250-some pages, it doesn't outstay its welcome with pedantic detail. Overall, one gets quite a comprehensive feel for Eliot's emotional life. There are times I wished for more detail, but I suspect it simply didn't exist to be provided; none of Evans and Lewes's letters to each other survive.

I have another, longer, more comprehensive Eliot biography that I'll get to someday, but for now, Maddox has provided a strong introduction to a fascinating figure. Highly recommended for anyone who is into George Eliot or the Victorians in general.

I can't fault this book in the truth-in-advertising department: it focuses on Eliot's love life, to a degree that her intellectual and artistic achievements seem more like backdrop. There are some not-particularly-well-supported assumptions about her early sexuality, and generally not enough depth in exploring her character and ideas. We're told rather than shown how fascinating she was. Fine as an introduction; fantastic if it raises interest in reading her fiction; but there are numerous full-length biographies that give the subject her due. This is not one of them. ( )

Considering that George Eliot was the brilliant author of so many brilliant novels, added to the fact that she defied social conventions to pursue life and love as she desired, I expected this biography to be . . . well, not quite so dull. In many ways, Maddox's efforts read like an annotated timeline of where "Marian" lodged, visited, and traveled. True to her title, Maddox speculates at regular intervals about her subject's crushes and presumed affairs, and she does a reasonably good job of depicting her quite conventional relationship with Gerge Henry Lewes. Although he was unable to divorce his adulterous first wife because he had assumed paternity for her lover's three children, he and Marian, who indeed seem to have been soulmates, settled comfortably into a conservative Victorian "marriage" that lasted for more than 25 years. Maddox also gives a brief account of Eliot's short-lived marriage to a much younger man after Lewes's death. Whether it is Maddox's style, her strict focus on Eliot's love life and domesticity, or some other unknown factor, the result is a rather flat and disappointing biography completely devoid of the vibrance and engagement one would expect in a book about the author of Middlemarch, Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss, and many other novels that are so full of life that they continue to fascinate readers today. ( )

This was a bit dry for a biography. I am having a hard time putting my finger on what exactly was missing from this book, but it's possible the author was too emotionally removed from the subject matter. George Eliot (Marian Evans) certainly had enough loves and heartaches to make for a more engaging read. In fact, I'm tempted to go in search of a meatier Eliot biography at some point.

Don't get me wrong, it's not terrible, but I was expecting something more along the lines of Claire Tomalin's excellent 'Jane Austen: A Life.' This was not in the same category, in my opinion. Still, I would recommend this book for those seeking a short Eliot biography. ( )

This my first review of a non-fiction book and I have no background in Literature, so please understand that this will not be a scholarly book review. Nor do I normally read a lot of biographies. However, I am a fan of Victorian novels and since George Eliot is among my favorite Victorian authors, I thought I’d give this biography a try. As it turned out "George Eliot in Love" read much like a novel, which I found refreshing. It may not be for the seasoned literary scholar, but rather for people like me- someone who is curious about the life of the author of some of their favorite books.

In defense of the light nature of this biography, in her introduction the author Brenda Maddox tells us that this” is a love story”. The title is, after all, “George Eliot in Love”. It was her loving relationship with George Henry Lewes that gave her the confidence to write the acclaimed novels for which she became known. Maddox does an excellent job of describing the author’s life and how her experiences inspired her great novels, such as "Middlemarch" and "Daniel Deronda". I was fascinated to learn that although nearly everyone described George Eliot as ugly, they also found her intelligence and personality so charismatic that both men and women fell in love with her. She led quite a life. And Maddox’s writing made me feel as if I knew her. ( )