George Eliot and Intoxication
Subtitle: Dangerous Drugs for the Condition of England
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: February 5, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780312227111
Subjects: Eliot, George, 1819-1880; Biography & Autobiography; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Literary Criticism; English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Women Authors; Eliot, George; Narcotic addicts; Political and social views; Social Science / General; Literary; 1819-1880; 19th century; Alcoholics; Characters; Didactic fiction, English; Drinking of alcoholic beverage; Drinking of alcoholic beverages in literature; Eliot, George,; England; History; History and criticism; Literature and society
Description: "Throughout George Eliot's fiction, not only do a remarkable number of her characters act under the influence of unwise consumption of alcohol and opium, but these drugs also recur often as metaphors and allusions.".

"George Eliot's constructions of drug-consuming characters (especially parental characters), analyzed in a context freshly drawn from a variety of Warwickshire local histories, demonstrate how intricately she connects medical, aesthetic, political, cultural, and gender issues of her period through references to intoxication.

Kathleen McCormack also describes George Eliot's forward-thinking theory of addiction and concludes with a radical biographical speculation concerning Christiana Pearson Evans, the novelist's shadowy mother."--BOOK JACKET.