Rachel Ray

Rachel Ray

Trollope, Anthony

London: Chapman & Hall, 1863

Internet Archive

1863

George Eliot to Anthony Trollope, 23 October 1863. “I received your kind letter some days before I received "Rachel Ray." But now I have read the book and can thank you both for your remembrance of me and for the gift. I value both. Rachel has a formidable rival in "The Small House," which seems to me peculiarly felicitous in its conception, and good for all souls to read. But I am much struck in "Rachel" with the skill with which you have organized thoroughly natural everyday incidents into a strictly related, well-proportioned whole, natty and complete as a nut on its stem. Such construction is among those subtleties of art which can hardly be appreciated except by those who have striven after the same result with conscious failure. Rachel herself is a sweet maidenly figure, and her poor mother's spiritual confusions are excellently observed. But there is something else I care yet more about, which has impressed me very happily in all those writings of yours that I know -- it is that people are breathing good bracing air in reading them -- it is that they (the books) are filled with belief in goodness without the slightest tinge of maudlin. They are like pleasant public gardens, where people go for amusement and, whether they think of it or not, get health as well.” GEL 4: 110

Trollope, Anthony, Rachel Ray, George Eliot's Reading, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/57655

https://georgeeliotarchive.org/files/original/d813f039a50a2da5c83c0227d29c3b93.pdf