George Meredith

George Meredith: The Life and Writing of an Alteregoist is not only a critical biography of the Victorian novelist and poet George Meredith but also a portrait of the novel in the later nineteenth century. Interweaving analysis of Meredith's novels and poems with discussion of his life, Richard Cronin focuses primarily on the books Meredith read and wrotearguing that novels by the end of the nineteenth century were shaped as much by the reading as by the experience of their writers. Cronin places Meredith's novels in relation to the work of his contemporaries including Henry James, Thomas Hardy, and George Gissing. Organized thematically, the book explores Meredith's personal sideincluding his hostility to biography, his origins as the son of a tailor, his marriagesas well as his reading habits, and the prose style that is the most complete expression of his strange but compelling personality.

Explores Meredith's hostility towards biography and his attempts to obscure his personal life Traces a late-nineteenth-century turn toward writing influenced by other novels rather than experience Expands understanding of style and prose of an often-ignored author

Autorentext

Richard Cronin is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow, UK. His most recent books are Romantic Victorians English Literature, 1824-1840 (2001); Paper Pellets: British Literary Culture after Waterloo (2010); and Reading Victorian Poetry (2011).

Klappentext

George Meredith: The Life and Writing of an Alteregoist is not only a critical biography of the Victorian novelist and poet George Meredith but also a portrait of the novel in the later nineteenth century. Interweaving analysis of Meredith s novels and poems with discussion of his life, Richard Cronin focuses primarily on the books Meredith read and wrote arguing that novels by the end of the nineteenth century were shaped as much by the reading as by the experience of their writers. Cronin places Meredith s novels in relation to the work of his contemporaries including Henry James, Thomas Hardy, and George Gissing. Organized thematically, the book explores Meredith s personal side including his hostility to biography, his origins as the son of a tailor, his marriages as well as his reading habits, and the prose style that is the most complete expression of his strange but compelling personality.

Inhalt

1. Meredith and the Personal.- 2. Tailordom.- 3. Mary (Courtship).- 4. Mary (Marriage).- 5. Novel People.- 6. Sons.- 7. Marie.- 8. Meredith and the Meredithian.