BY MATHILDE BLIND NEW EDITION TO WHICH ARE ADDED A CRITICAL ESTIMATE AND SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTERS ON HER BY FRANK WALDO, PH.D. AND G. A. TURKINGTON, M.A. With a Bibliography BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1904 Copyright, 1883, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. Copyright, 1904, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS PR 4681 B5 1904 GEORGE ELIOT AND HER WORK MATHILDE BLIND, the author of this volume on George Eliot, was born at Mannheim, March 21, 1841. Her own father's name was Cohen, but she took the name of her stepfather, Karl Blind. The latter took part in the Baden insurrection of 1848-49, and was exiled. The family finally settled in London, after a sojourn in France and Belgium, and the Blind home became a rendezvous for refugees from the Continent. Mathilde early showed a taste for poetry and published a number of poems, the most ambitious of which was the 'Ascent of Man,' an epic based on Darwin's great work. This was reissued after her death with an introduction by Alfred Russel Wallace. Miss Blind translated Strauss's 'The Old Faith and the New' and 'The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff,' and among her prose writings were 'Madame Roland' and the present volume in the Famous Women Series.' Miss Blind displayed much ability in all of her writings, and some of her poetry ranks high. There is a memoir prefixed to her collected works, edited by Arthur Symons in 1900. Miss Blind was well equipped for writing a biography of George Eliot, not only by her mental endowments, but as well. by her literary training and experiences in England and on the Continent. The extensive literature which has appeared concerning the life and writings of George Eliot ranges from brief notices to formidable volumes covering the period of her whole life, and includes the criticism of the foremost litterateurs and even the testimony of George Eliot herself. Far the most important of all, so far as her personality is concerned, is her life as told in the volumes of extracts from her diary and letters which were edited by her husband, Mr. Cross, and published in 1885. The first to appear of the separate volumes treating of George Eliot's life and writings was that by Mathilde Blind, written just after the great novelist's death and published in London and Boston in 1883, at a time when retrospective interest in George Eliot's life was naturally the keenest. A good deal of critical and some biographical material had been previously published in scattered places, but this was the first attempt to gather it together and summarize it; much additional matter was also included, so that Miss Blind's book could not be looked upon as a mere compilation. The George Eliot literature has two distinct periods, the second of which begins with the publication of her life and letters; or perhaps it is not too much to make the statement that it began with the publication of Mathilde Blind's 'George Eliot,' for Miss Blind had access to much of the then unpublished material that appeared a little later in Cross's 'Life,' and even quoted some letters that did not appear in the 'Life.' So excellently was her work done and so diligently did she search out local unpublished material that a care |