Highgate Cemetery #5: George Eliot

George Eliot's prominent obelisk.

 

'OF THOSE IMMORTAL DEAD WHO LIVE AGAIN

IN MINDS MADE BETTER BY THEIR PRESENCE

 

HERE LIES THE BODY

OF

'GEORGE ELIOT',

MARY ANN CROSS.

Born 22. November 1819

Died 22. December 1880'

George Eliot in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

The plaque on the front of the United Services Club, Bridge Street, Gainsborough:

 

'GEORGE ELIOT

The Novelist visited the town

in 1859 and renamed it St Oggs

in her novel, The Mill on the Floss

published 4th April 1840

Plaque erected by The Delvers'

 

Kathleen McCormack mentions George Eliot's 'three-day research trip' to Gainsborough in George Eliot's English Travels: Composite Characters and Coded Communications (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005), in which she states that Eliot's short tours of the shires were for gathering material which she would directly include in her fiction. Eliot and her partner George Henry Lewes went by train from London to Gainsborough in 1859, when she was writing The Mill on the Floss: there, she found both a model for the town St Ogg's and for the River Floss (the Trent), which avoided comparisons with the recognizable models  in her native Warwickshire that she had used in previous novels.

In her novel, Eliot mentions the river's tide and flood, Gainsborough being a place where the river is noted for its tidal wave the Trent Aegir (or Eagre, as Eliot calls it). She also noted the wharves, and on returning to London made alterations to her work in progress, adding to the history of the town and making comments on 'the old hall' which make it evident that she could only have had Gainborough's Old Hall in mind.

 

 

 

Literary Associations in Chelsea: London #47

Chelsea is steeped in literary history and literary associations, and the images below represent just some choice ones, but are by no means meant to be fully comprehensive.

104 Cheyne Walk:

 

'HILAIRE

BELLOC

1870–1953

Poet, essayist

and historian

lived here

1900–1905'

 

Paulton's House, Paulton's Square, where this plaque was unveiled at around the same time as the Elizabeth Bowen plaque in Clarendon Terrace, Regents Park in March 2012:

 

'JEAN RHYS

1890–1979

Writer

lived here

[with her literary agent]

in Flat 22

1936–1938'

 

28 Mallord Street:

 

'This house

was built for

AUGUSTUS

JOHN

1878–1961

Painter'

13 Mallord Street:

 

'A. A.

MILNE

1882–1956

Author

lived here'

 

53 Old Church Street. I half expected to find a blue plaque saying John Betjeman had lived here, but things seem to have taken over.

 

24 Cheyne Row, now owned by the National Trust:

 

'THOMAS CARLYLE

LIVED AT 24 CHEYNE ROW 1834–1881

THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY THE CARLYLE SOCIETY'

 

This house was originally No 5. The plaque was sculpted by Benjamin Creswick in 1885 after a design by C. F. A Voysey.

 

 22 Upper Cheyne Row:

 

'LEIGH HUNT

1784–1859

Essayist & Poet

Lived Here'

 

On, then, to Dr John Samuel Phene, who published a few obscure books: On Prehistoric Traditions and Customs in Connection with Sun and Serpent Worship, and On an Age of Colossi. The British Library has several manuscripts that he wrote to the Committee of the Literary Fund under the (more correct) surname John S. Phené.

 

I also find it interesting that the Bibliothèque nationale de France has a five-page paper of his about the behaviour of cave men in western Europe:

'Auteur(s) : Phené, John S. (Dr)
Titre(s) : Association française pour l'avancement des sciences. Le Dr John S. Phené,... Sur les coutumes des hommes des cavernes dans l'Europe occidentale. Séance du 21 août 1875 [Texte imprimé]
Publication : Paris : au Secrétariat de l'Association, 1875
Description matérielle : In-8° , 5 p.'

 

Dr Phene built a house on the corner of Oakley Street and Upper Cheyne Row apparently modelled on his French family's home, the Chateau de Savenay. The front of the building is said to have had 'writhing' gods and godesses, busts of royalty, etc, and was painted red and yellow with bits of gold. Parts of that description (but not the colours) can, I think, be seen in photos here, although unless there's some joke I don't understand, I think Dickens's Miss Havisham has been confused with a Miss Faversham in the link here:  The Library Time Machine.

 

Sad to say, Dr Phene's house was bulldozed away long ago, although the pub he built, the Phene Arms, is preserved.

 

33 Oakley Gardens is diagonally opposite the Phene:

 

'GEORGE

GISSING

1857–1903

Novelist

lived here

1882–1884'

 

87 Oakley Street:

 

'JANE

FRANCESCA,

LADY WILDE

"SPERANZA"

1821–1896

Poet and Essayist

lived here

1887–1896'

 

'DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI'

 

In Chelsea Embankment Gardens, in front of his home at 16 Cheyne Walk where he lived from 1862 until his death in 1882, is the Rossetti Fountain: designed by John Pollard Seddon, sculpted by Ford Maddox Brown, and unveiled by William Holman Hunt.

 

His hands rest on his Dante and his Circle and Ballads and Sonnets.

 

4 Cheyne Walk:

 

'GEORGE

ELIOT

1819–1880

NOVELIST

died here'

 

34 Tite Street:

 

'OSCAR

WILDE

1854–1900

wit and

dramatist

lived here'

 

And this seems like the right time to include this image. I'm thinking, of course, of the famous occasion when Wilde said he wished he'd said something James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) had said, and Whistler replied 'You will, Oscar, you will.'

 

Whistler's statue is on Cheyne Walk, on the corner of Battersea Bridge Road, and although intended to commemorate the centenary of his death, wasn't in fact erected here until 2005.

 

23 Tedworth Square:

 

SAMUEL L.

CLEMENS

"MARK TWAIN"

1835–1910

American Writer

lived here in

1896–7'.

George Eliot in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England

John Letts sculpted the bronze statue of George Eliot (1819-80) which was erected in Newdegate Square, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in 1986.

The facial representation is flattering.

'GEORGE ELIOT

1819 - 1880

BORN AT ARBURY, NUNEATON

UNVEILED BY JONATHAN G. OUVRY

PRESIDENT OF THE GEORGE ELIOT FELLOWSHIP

GREAT, GREAT GRANDSON OF G. H. LEWES.

MARCH 22nd. 1986

ERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION'

'THE MAJOR WORKS OF GEORGE ELIOT

1857-8 SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE

1859 ADAM BEDE

1860 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS

1861 SILAS MARNER

1862-3 ROMOLA

1866 FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL

1871-2 MIDDLEMARCH'

'MARY ANN EVANS (GEORGE ELIOT),

NOVELIST, JOURNALIST, ESSAYIST AND POET

LIVED AT GRIFF HOUSE [COVENTRY ROAD] UNTIL 1840
WHEN SHE MOVED TO COVENTRY AND LATER TO LONDON.

'FROM 1854 TO 1878 SHE LIVED WITH G. H. LEWES

WHO ENCOURAGED HER TO WRITE FICTION. HER

NOVELS BROUGHT HER WORLD WIDE FAME.

'IN MAY 1880 SHE MARRIED J. W. CROSS AND DIED

IN DECEMBER AT 4. CHEYNE WALK, CHELSEA.

'SHE IS BURIED IN HIGHGATE CEMETERY, LONDON.'

The George Eliot Memorial Gardens were opened in 1952.

The obelisk was originally at Arbury Park, but was moved on the opening of the gardens.

'GEORGE

ELIOT

1819-1880'

'MARY ANN EVANS

BORN AT SOUTH

FARM ARBURY

22 NOV 1819'

'DIED THE WIFE

OF JOHN WALTER

CROSS AT 4

CHEYNE WALK

CHELSEA

22 DEC 1880'

On a stone in front of the obelisk are the large initials 'GE' with her date of her birth and death bottom left.

The George Eliot Hotel in Bridge Street was a coaching inn called the the Bull Hotel, and features in 'Janet's Repentance' in Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life as the Red Lion.

The inn sign shows Frederick William Burton's representation of Eliot.

The Felix Holt in Stratford Street, Nuneaton, is one of the very few pubs named after a book.

The town of Milby in 'Janet's Redemption' is based on Nuneaton, and the parish church features in it. 

In the story, the character Dempster is based on the lawyer John Buchanan, whose tomb is in the churchyard by King Edward Street.