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Felix Holt, the Radical

ALISON BOOTH (ESSAY DATE 1992)

SOURCE: Booth, Alison. “Not All Men Are Selfish and Cruel: Felix Holt As a Feminist Novel.” In Gender and Discourse in Victorian Literature and Art, edited by Antony H. Harrison and Beverly Taylor, pp. 143-60. De-Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Booth explores the gender conflict in Felix Holt, asserting that the novel is an “unassimilated feminist argument.”

Once George Eliot had established herself as a great woman of letters in such works as the unpopular but authoritative Romola, she found herself in a difficult position. The stakes were higher perhaps even than they had been when she vindicated the fallen, strong-minded woman, Marian Evans “Lewes,” in the wise reminiscences of the clerical George Eliot. That gentleman had...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. (Review Date 14 April 1860)
4. General Commentary
   1. Virginia Woolf (Essay Date 1925)
   2. Sherri Catherine Smith (Essay Date June 1996)
5. Title Commentary
   1. Felix Holt, the Radical
   2. Middlemarch
6. Further Reading
7. Copyright

1. Feminism
2. George Eliot