The Elmi Farhangi Publishing Company is the publisher of the book released by the Cambridge University Press in 2008. The book has been rendered into Persian by Rahmatollah Qaemi.

As the author of “The Mill on the Floss” and “Middlemarch”, George Eliot was one of the most admired novelists of the Victorian period, and she remains a central figure in the literary canon today. 

She was the first woman to take on the kind of political and philosophical fiction that had previously been a male preserve, combining rigorous intellectual ideas with a sensitive understanding of human relationships and making her one of the most important writers of the nineteenth century. 

This innovative introduction provides students with the religious, political, scientific and cultural contexts they need to understand and appreciate her novels, stories, poetry and critical essays. 

Nancy Henry also traces the reception of her work to the present, surveying a range of critical and theoretical responses. 

Each novel is discussed in a separate section, making this the most comprehensive short introduction available to this important author.

Nancy Henry is also the author of “George Eliot and Politics”, which was published by the Cambridge University Press in 2006.

In this book, Henry says that “Confound their petty politics!” is the curse of Tertius Lydgate in the days leading up to the fateful vote for the chaplaincy of the Middlemarch infirmary. 

Lydgate had hoped to remain above such trivial concerns and to concentrate on his medical research and practice. 

Yet, as in other affairs, Lydgate’s character flaws are as much to blame for his unintentional entanglements as are the circumstances into which he is thrown. 

George Eliot’s narrator describes Lydgate’s state of mind before the vote by a metaphor that points outward to a greater political scene: “He could not help hearing within him the distinct declaration that Bulstrode was prime minister, and that the Tyke affair was a question of office or no office, and he could not help an equally pronounced dislike to give up the prospect of office.” 

Lydgate’s highly rationalized yet spontaneous vote for Tyke and against Farebrother wins him “office”, but he eventually finds reason to regret his desire for this prize, so uncomfortably won by his public display of party loyalty.

Source: Tehran Times