GE to George Bancroft, Earlswood Common, 15 July 1874
Title
GE to George Bancroft, Earlswood Common, 15 July 1874
Title
GE to George Bancroft, Earlswood Common, 15 July 1874
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
George Bancroft
Date(s)
- 1874-07-15
Place
Earlswood Common
Letter Content
GE to George Bancroft, Earlswood Common, 15 July 1874
Text: Typewritten copy in Massachusetts Historical Society. Hitherto unpublished.
The Cottage | Earlswood Common | July 15, 74.
My dear Mr. Bancroft, 123
We have been in strict retreat here since the first of June and the persons in charge of our house have orders not to give our address. If we had been at home we should have been delighted to shake hands once more with you and Mrs. Bancroft. I trust that I may entirely congratulate you both on the prospect of being restored to the United States, notwithstanding the many happy, affectionate associations you have with Berlin. I lose not a minute in answering your letter which has just been brought to our breakfast table.
In the first place I feel much gratified by the delicacy of Mr. Burlingame in asking you to be an intermediary. I have had various applications from America of a somewhat similar kind, from writers unknown to me, who apparently expected me to furnish them with an elaborate account of myself or of the "origin of my works," and who had felt no need of an introduction.
I perceive from the few words -- highly considerate words, in which you put Mr. Burlingame's proposal, 124 that I may count on your full understanding and your discreet conveyance of what I say to you on the subject.
I am thoroughly opposed in principle (quite apart from any personal reference to myself) to the system of contemporary biography. I think it one of the abuses of print and reading that the mass of the public will read any quantity of trivial details about a writer with whose works they are very imperfectly, if at all, acquainted. Even posthumous biography is, I think, increasingly perverted into an indulgence of this time-wasting tendency: for example, a great poet's trash, written when he was a schoolboy, trash which, if he had remembered it, he would have burnt, is brought into quite mortifying publicity at the end of half a century, and poor Dickens's small scraps of memoranda certainly meant for no eyes but his own, are raked from his desk to the amusement of the most contemptible of his readers and (I trust) to the indignation of all who respected him.
I say these things merely to indicate the point of view from which I take my objection to furnishing particulars about myself for any compendium such as our own "Men of the Time." It seems to me that just my works and the order in which they have appeared is what the part of the public which cares about me may most usefully know; and Mr. Lewes declined, on my behalf, to give any information to the editors of that work, who have had the good taste not to insert unauthenticated statements. 125
In reply to Miss Phelps (the author of [Gates Ajar]) who said that she desired only to know something that would better enable her to illustrate the bearing of my books in some lectures which she expected to give, I stated that I was born in Warwickshire and brought up in the Church of England -- the latter point having some importance merely that my sympathetic presentation of dissenters may be understood not as a prejudice of education but as an impartial judgment. 126
Apart from this correspondence with Miss Phelps, I believe that I have in no instance given any other reply to biographical questions than, that I decline to furnish personal information.
If I ever did so, I can say without fear of its being interpreted as a hollow phrase, that a request from editors of repute transmitted so delicately through you, would be an instance that could present no obstacles, but rather, every inducement.
But I prefer that not only myself, but other authors, should be more read during their lives and have their lives left unwritten till they are dead. Perhaps you may not agree with me, but I am sure you will tolerate my difference, even if you class it as an idiosyncrasy.
With best regards to Mrs. Bancroft and yourself, in which Mr. Lewes heartily joins, I remain, my dear Mr. Bancroft,
Yours most sincerely,
M. E. Lewes.
Text: Typewritten copy in Massachusetts Historical Society. Hitherto unpublished.
The Cottage | Earlswood Common | July 15, 74.
My dear Mr. Bancroft, 123
We have been in strict retreat here since the first of June and the persons in charge of our house have orders not to give our address. If we had been at home we should have been delighted to shake hands once more with you and Mrs. Bancroft. I trust that I may entirely congratulate you both on the prospect of being restored to the United States, notwithstanding the many happy, affectionate associations you have with Berlin. I lose not a minute in answering your letter which has just been brought to our breakfast table.
In the first place I feel much gratified by the delicacy of Mr. Burlingame in asking you to be an intermediary. I have had various applications from America of a somewhat similar kind, from writers unknown to me, who apparently expected me to furnish them with an elaborate account of myself or of the "origin of my works," and who had felt no need of an introduction.
I perceive from the few words -- highly considerate words, in which you put Mr. Burlingame's proposal, 124 that I may count on your full understanding and your discreet conveyance of what I say to you on the subject.
I am thoroughly opposed in principle (quite apart from any personal reference to myself) to the system of contemporary biography. I think it one of the abuses of print and reading that the mass of the public will read any quantity of trivial details about a writer with whose works they are very imperfectly, if at all, acquainted. Even posthumous biography is, I think, increasingly perverted into an indulgence of this time-wasting tendency: for example, a great poet's trash, written when he was a schoolboy, trash which, if he had remembered it, he would have burnt, is brought into quite mortifying publicity at the end of half a century, and poor Dickens's small scraps of memoranda certainly meant for no eyes but his own, are raked from his desk to the amusement of the most contemptible of his readers and (I trust) to the indignation of all who respected him.
I say these things merely to indicate the point of view from which I take my objection to furnishing particulars about myself for any compendium such as our own "Men of the Time." It seems to me that just my works and the order in which they have appeared is what the part of the public which cares about me may most usefully know; and Mr. Lewes declined, on my behalf, to give any information to the editors of that work, who have had the good taste not to insert unauthenticated statements. 125
In reply to Miss Phelps (the author of [Gates Ajar]) who said that she desired only to know something that would better enable her to illustrate the bearing of my books in some lectures which she expected to give, I stated that I was born in Warwickshire and brought up in the Church of England -- the latter point having some importance merely that my sympathetic presentation of dissenters may be understood not as a prejudice of education but as an impartial judgment. 126
Apart from this correspondence with Miss Phelps, I believe that I have in no instance given any other reply to biographical questions than, that I decline to furnish personal information.
If I ever did so, I can say without fear of its being interpreted as a hollow phrase, that a request from editors of repute transmitted so delicately through you, would be an instance that could present no obstacles, but rather, every inducement.
But I prefer that not only myself, but other authors, should be more read during their lives and have their lives left unwritten till they are dead. Perhaps you may not agree with me, but I am sure you will tolerate my difference, even if you class it as an idiosyncrasy.
With best regards to Mrs. Bancroft and yourself, in which Mr. Lewes heartily joins, I remain, my dear Mr. Bancroft,
Yours most sincerely,
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to George Bancroft, Earlswood Common, 15 July 1874, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/92449