In 1848, the 28-year-old Mary Ann Evans (yet to metamorphose into George Eliot) wrote the following to John Sibree, an apprentice soul-mate: “My Gentile nature kicks most resolutely against any assumption of superiority in the Jews, and is almost ready to echo Voltaire’s vituperation. I bow to the superiority of Hebrew poetry but much of their early mythology, and almost all their history, is utterly revolting.”
However, young Mary Ann was already in the midst of enormous changes, made apparent in another letter, written when the writer’s age had doubled. “Not only towards the Jews, but towards all Oriental peoples with whom we English come in contact, a spirit of arrogance and contemptuous dictatorialness is observable which has become a national disgrace to us,” she wrote to Harriet Beecher Stowe. “Towards the Hebrews we Western people, who have been reared in Christianity, have a peculiar debt, and, whether we acknowledge it or not, a peculiar thoroughness of fellowship in religious and moral sentiment.”
Among other things, Nancy Henry’s finely crafted biography of George Eliot (the 38th by her count) charts the intellectual journey that took her subject from ignorant Anglican disdain to big-time philosemitism.
In general, Eliot disapproved of biographies, regarding them as the “disease of English literature”. As far as she was concerned, “the best history of a writer is contained in his writings — these are his chief actions.” But even she might look kindly upon Number 38, for Professor Henry has concentrated her attention upon the writings — though she does not ignore the life, and its influence upon those all-important writings.
