Everyman library

"It is all more strange than I fancied," he said at last. "It was queer enough what I saw; a man is sauntering along a quiet, sober, everyday London street, a street of grey houses and blank walls, and there, for a moment, a veil seems drawn aside, and the very fume of the pit steams up through the flagstones, the ground glows, red-hot, beneath his feet, and he seems to hear the hiss of the infernal caldron. A man flying in mad terror for his life, and furious hate pressing hot on his steps with knife drawn ready; here, indeed, is horror; but what is all that to what you have told me? I tell you, Phillipps, I see the plot thicken; our steps will henceforth be dogged with mystery, and the most ordinary incidents will teem with significance. You may stand out against it, and shut your eyes, but they will be forced open; mark my words, you will have to yield to the inevitable. A clue, tangled if you like, has been placed by chance in our hands; it will be our business to follow it up. As for the guilty person or persons in this strange case, they will be unable to escape us, our nets will be spread far and wide over this great city, and suddenly, in the streets and places of public resort, we shall in some way or other be made aware that we are in touch with the unknown criminal. Indeed I almost fancy I see him slowly approaching this quiet square of yours; he is loitering at street corners, wandering, apparently without aim, down far-reaching thoroughfares, but all the while coming nearer and nearer, drawn by an irresistible magnetism, as ships were drawn to the Loadstone Rock in the Eastern tale."

"Impressions of Theophrastus Such, published in 1879, marks the end of George Eliot's career and the end of her life with George Henry Lewes. In many ways this fable is a final testimony to her brilliance, and yet it is puzzling that it has traditionally been judged as inferior to her other works. It remains, on the contrary, a significant reflection of her earlier works and an experiment apart from them." "As Nancy Henry points out in her comprehensive introduction, this book goes beyond even Daniel Deronda in positing the role of collective memory in the future of national cultures and the power of literary texts in creating and preserving both. It is a complex and deeply intelligent synthesis of Eliot's previous great works as well as an interesting departure from them. It signals the culmination of her development as a writer of organic form and the beginning of what could be termed an early modernist experimentation through fragmentation of form." "In eight dexterous chapters, Theophrastus reflects on the habits of his contemporaries - on their tendency to romanticize past ages, the ruthless nature of scholarly debate, the mocking of traditionally revered works of the absurdity of decadence in art, and the justification for Jewish and other modern nationalisms. As the character of Theophrastus emerges and coheres, the mature and accomplished George Eliot asks what has become of nineteenth-century English culture while speculating on how it might adapt and survive."--BOOK JACKET.