The Female Thinker

Abstract

Although Eliot is best known as a novelist she came to that literary form comparatively late in her career. Her first short story, The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, was published in Black-wood’s Magazine in 1857, by which time she was 37 years old. Two other stories followed: Mr Gilfil’s Love Story and Janet’s Repentance. In 1858 they were published in book form under the title Scenes of Clerical Life. It was a modest introduction to prose fiction for an author who was to become a seminal novelist. She had, though, already written a good deal in other fields.