George Eliot in Germany 1854–55

From 1854 to 1855 George Eliot spent eight months in Germany a period that marked the start of her life with George Lewes. Though Eliot documented this journey more extensively than any other it has remained an under-researched part of Eliot's biography. In her meticulously documented and engaging book Gerlinde Röder-Bolton draws on Eliot's own writings as well as on extensive original research in German archives and libraries to provide the most thorough account yet published of the couple's visit. Rich in historical social and cultural detail George Eliot in Germany 1854-55 not only records the couple's travels but supplies a context for their encounters with people and places. In the process Röder-Bolton shows how the crossing of geographical boundaries may be read as symbolic of Eliot's transition from single woman to social outcast and from translator and critic to writer of fiction.