By quoting extensively from George Eliot's own writings - all the novels, letters, essays, poetry - and from contemporary Victorian sources - feminist journals and tracts, novels by other female writers, newspapers, magazines, speeches, poetry, scientific theories - this book allows the age to present its own dynamic self-portrait. The conflicts illustrated by that picture are also central to Eliot's work, and no understanding of either the society or the novels can be achieved without an appreciation of the other. Sexual conduct as actually practised challenged the notions of conventional morality; the oppression and deprivation of women ran counter to the spirit of increasing democracy; class war threatened political stability; financial greed and the demands of an expanding economy confronted Christian ethics and the idea of a just society; the need for religious faith appeared to be undermined by new scientific thinking. As this clearly written and lucidly argued book shows George Eliot's novels deal with all these enduring personal and social problems. Both Eliot and the society in which she lived emerge from this investigation as complex but irresistibly fascinating subjects with a relevance for all time.