LETTER: Autograph letter signed, "M.E. Lewes," to publisher Nicholas Trubner.
Unpublished
Regarding Research for Daniel Deronda
Eliot, George. Autograph letter signed “M.E. Lewes” to Nicholas Trubner; July 6, 1874; 3pp.; one leaf of “The Priory/21 North Bank/Regents Park” stationery (crossed out and emended to read “The Cottage/Earlswood Common”); written in purple ink; folded to make four pages; creased; below Lewes’s signature, the letter is additionally signed “(‘George Eliot’)” in black ink (Eliot signed her letters using her given name, Lewes, rather than her pen name).
An unpublished letter from Eliot to the publisher and bookseller Nicholas Trubner, regarding preparatory reading on Judaism that Eliot did before writing Daniel Deronda (1876), providing extraordinary insight to Eliot’s working process and her scholarly relationship with Trubner. In Trubner’s American and Oriental Literary Records (Trubner & Co., 1883), it is noted that Trubner and his wife were two of Eliot’s “staunchest friends” (p. 48).
Eliot writes to Trubner, discussing books he lent her to help in her research for Daniel Deronda, her final novel which contained Jewish characters and themes. She thanks Trubner for “meeting [her] wants in the matter of Jewish Literature,” specifically, “Hirschfeld’s Excellent Sketch… Also Geiger’s ‘Judaism & its Hist?’ & Friday Night.” She mentions that she did not find Geiger’s Friday Night to be “a very nourishing source of information.” She elaborates,
The first story in it (Anschel, the Schlemiely) is an admirable one taken from Kompert, it is rather disgraceful to the editors that they altogether leave out the names of the authors from whom the stories are taken, only mentioning the translator. (p. 1-2)
Though she did not care for the Geiger book, Eliot requests permission to retain the copy of the Hyam Isaac’s book. She explains, “This is not only full of knowledge but is interesting for the writing of a Jew who professes to be a convert to Xtianity yet writes affectionately & admiringly of his fellow Israelites” (p.2).
Eliot asks that other books be put on her account, including some by Kalisch, Bilder, Teudlan, and Berliner . In closing, she asks, “Milman speaks of an Autobiography of Jost’s, which he says contains a very interesting account of the state of the schools & education generally among the Jews in the time of the writer’s youth. He gives as a reference Sippurim, Vol. III. Do you know anything of this work?” (p. 3).
Trubner’s influence on Eliot’s work is well-known. One book, George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda Notebooks (Jane Irwin, ed., Cambridge University Press, 1996), prints Eliot’s notebooks from 1872-1877. These books were filled with her reading lists and notes taken before she began the novel, and reveal her background research on Judaism and Hebrew literature. The notebooks also provide evidence that Eliot used Trubner’s collection as a lending library. Eliot prudently kept a record of the books she borrowed; there was a page containing a list of “Books retained from T.”
Eliot had become interested in Judaism through her friendship with Emanuel Deutsch, an Orientalist who worked at the British Museum, and who taught Eliot Hebrew. Eliot had become increasingly frustrated by the anti-Semitism she encountered in her British social circle, and she hoped that she could provide some enlightenment and tolerance through her writing in Daniel Derond; her goal being to “widen the English vision a little” (Geroge Eliot, by Ashton, p. 348). Though Daniel Deronda sold well and received respectable praise, English critics were unsure how to interpret the “Jewish element.”
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