Description
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) made her fictional debut when Scenes of Clerical Life appeared in Blackwood's Magazine in 1857. Focusing on provincial life, the three scenes: ‘The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton’, ‘Mr Gilfil’s Love Story’ and ‘Janet’s Repentance’, all have remarkable contemporary resonances and are proof of Eliot's ability to enlighten and interest modern readers.
The Scenes won acclaim from a discerning readership including Charles Dickens: ‘I hope you will excuse my writing to you to express my admiration...The exquisite truth and delicacy, both of the humour and the pathos of those stories, I have never seen the like of.’