Clare Carlisle and Kathy O’Shaughnessy

Philosopher Clare Carlisle and novelist Kathy O’Shaughnessy discuss what they have learned about the real George Eliot through their respective work editing a new version of Eliot’s translation of Spinoza’s Ethics and writing a novel based on the author’s life.

Carlisle explains how Marian Evans – later to take the pen name George Eliot for her fiction – completed the first translation of Spinoza’s Ethics into English in 1856 when she was living with the philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes. It was not published because of a disagreement between Lewes and the publisher. Evans soon turned to fiction, and her debut novel Adam Bede was published in 1859. Carlisle looks at Eliot’s interest in Spinoza and its impact on her novels. Carlisle is reader in philosophy and theology at Kings College London and author of Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard.

O’Shaughnessy’s In Love with George Eliot is a reimagining of the life of George Eliot in novel form. Evans is living in sin with Lewes and has shocked private society. Women rarely visit her, but she has begun writing the fiction that will shoot her to fame. This fame changes everything, until Lewes dies and Evans finds herself in danger of shocking the world again. O’Shaughnessy reviews books for national newspapers and has worked as a deputy editor of Literary Review.