The Complicity of Friends

How George Eliot, G. H. Lewes, and John Hughlings-Jackson Encoded Herbert Spencer’s Secret

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, British, Nonfiction, History, Modern, 19th Century
Cover of the book The Complicity of Friends by Martin Raitiere, Bucknell University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Martin Raitiere ISBN: 9781611484199
Publisher: Bucknell University Press Publication: September 28, 2012
Imprint: Bucknell University Press Language: English
Author: Martin Raitiere
ISBN: 9781611484199
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Publication: September 28, 2012
Imprint: Bucknell University Press
Language: English

One of Victorian England’s most famous philosophers harbored a secret: Herbert Spencer suffered from an illness so laden with stigma that he feared its revelation would ruin him. He therefore went to extraordinary lengths to hide his malady from the public. Exceptionally, he drew two of his closest friends—the novelist George Eliot and her partner, G. H. Lewes—into his secret. Years later, he also shared it with a remarkable neurologist, John Hughlings-Jackson, better placed than anyone else in England to understand his illness. Spencer insisted that all three support him without betraying his condition to others—and two of them did so. But George Eliot, still smarting from Spencer’s rejection, years earlier, of her offer of love, did not. Ingeniously, she devised a means both of nominally respecting (for their contemporaries) and of violating (for our benefit) Spencer’s injunction. What she hid from her peers she reveals to us in an act of deferred, but audacious literary revenge. It’s here decoded for the first time. Indeed The Complicity of Friends comprises the first disclosure of Spencer’s hidden frailty but also, more importantly, of the responses it generated in the lives and works of his three notable friends.
This book provides a complete rethinking of its principal figures. The novelist who emerges in these pages is a more sinuous and passionate George Eliot than the oracular Victorian we are used to hearing about. The significance of the friendship between Lewes, her irrepressible partner, and the inventive Hughlings-Jackson is outlined for the first time. And in an ironic twist, even his three farsighted confidants could not anticipate that, late in the twentieth century, certain of Spencer’s own intuitions about the nature and provenance of his illness would be vindicated. Those with any interest in George Eliot, Lewes, Hughlings-Jackson, or Spencer will be compelled to re-envision their personalities after reading The Complicity of Friends.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

One of Victorian England’s most famous philosophers harbored a secret: Herbert Spencer suffered from an illness so laden with stigma that he feared its revelation would ruin him. He therefore went to extraordinary lengths to hide his malady from the public. Exceptionally, he drew two of his closest friends—the novelist George Eliot and her partner, G. H. Lewes—into his secret. Years later, he also shared it with a remarkable neurologist, John Hughlings-Jackson, better placed than anyone else in England to understand his illness. Spencer insisted that all three support him without betraying his condition to others—and two of them did so. But George Eliot, still smarting from Spencer’s rejection, years earlier, of her offer of love, did not. Ingeniously, she devised a means both of nominally respecting (for their contemporaries) and of violating (for our benefit) Spencer’s injunction. What she hid from her peers she reveals to us in an act of deferred, but audacious literary revenge. It’s here decoded for the first time. Indeed The Complicity of Friends comprises the first disclosure of Spencer’s hidden frailty but also, more importantly, of the responses it generated in the lives and works of his three notable friends.
This book provides a complete rethinking of its principal figures. The novelist who emerges in these pages is a more sinuous and passionate George Eliot than the oracular Victorian we are used to hearing about. The significance of the friendship between Lewes, her irrepressible partner, and the inventive Hughlings-Jackson is outlined for the first time. And in an ironic twist, even his three farsighted confidants could not anticipate that, late in the twentieth century, certain of Spencer’s own intuitions about the nature and provenance of his illness would be vindicated. Those with any interest in George Eliot, Lewes, Hughlings-Jackson, or Spencer will be compelled to re-envision their personalities after reading The Complicity of Friends.

More books from Bucknell University Press

Cover of the book Beyond Civilization and Barbarism by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Mikhail Bakhtin by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Writing the Americas in Enlightenment Spain by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Print Technology in Scotland and America, 1740–1800 by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Shakespeare and the Spanish Comedia by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Reading Homer’s Odyssey by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Female Amerindians in Early Modern Spanish Theater by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Feminism and the Politics of Travel after the Enlightenment by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Collected Writings of Charles Brockden Brown by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Developments in the Histories of Sexualities by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Don't Whisper Too Much and Portrait of a Young Artiste from Bona Mbella by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Figures of Memory by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Antigone's Ghosts by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Darwinism in Argentina by Martin Raitiere
Cover of the book Henri Lefebvre and the Spanish Urban Experience by Martin Raitiere
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy