George Eliot’s Journals

Here on the new George Eliot’s Journals page, researchers can search the contents of Eliot’s diaries and journals. There are 1,876 entries—some many pages long and others just a few words.

Our source is the essential edition edited by Margaret Harris and Judith Johnston, The Journals of George Eliot (Cambridge University, 1997). We don’t display the entire book; instead we offer scholars a new way to find and access the content they collected. For those using the printed text alongside our digital tool, we have retained reference to their page numbers and journal titles to facilitate cross-referencing.

Displayed Information:

Every query will return 4 columns of information: date or estimated date of the entry; the journal containing the entry; the page numbers corresponding to The Journals of George Eliot; and the journal entry itself.

How to use:
In the search box below, enter keywords, key phrases, or dates in YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD format to view all results matching your entry.

**Journal entries displayed from keyword or key-phrase queries will display a maximum of 1 sentence before and/or after the found query. For the full entry, search by date.**

Users may also sort the data and scan the entries by date or page number.

The sorting feature is still a work-in-progress. Some dates include brackets, which are an essential addition to indicate an estimated date. Currently, the brackets are throwing off the ordering feature. We’ll resolve this in our next iteration but for now, the page number ordering serves a similar function.

NOTE that the application may not work using the Safari browser. Our applications work optimally with Chrome.