George Eliot and the British Empire In this study Nancy Henry introduces a new set of facts that place George Eliots life and work within the contexts of mid nineteenth century British colonialism and imperialism. Henry examines Eliots roles as an investor in colonial stocks a parent to emigrant sons and a reader of colonial literature. She highlights the importance of these contexts to our understanding of both Eliots fiction and her situation within Victorian culture. Henry argues that Eliots decision to represent the empire only as it infiltrated the imaginations and domestic lives of her characters illuminates the nature of her realism. The book also re examines the assumptions of post colonial criticism about Victorian fiction and its relation to empire. Jacket