American Unitarian minister George Willis Cooke (1848–1923) worked for almost thirty years in Unitarian churches across the United States before turning full-time to scholarly pursuits in 1900. Cooke, a voracious reader who was largely self-taught, attended Meadville Theological School in Illinois but never graduated. A radical in theology and politics, he was drawn to the transcendentalist authors and in 1881 published a critical study of the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cooke's George Eliot: A Critical Study of her Life, Writings and Philosophy (1883) probably emerged from those same philosophical impulses. The book was published just after Blind's biography, but Cooke asserts that with a small exception his work was complete when hers appeared; moreover, his study prioritises the act of 'interpreting and criticising [Eliot's] teachings' over the details of her life, and the book's organisation reflects this hierarchy, giving insights into the contemporary reception of George Eliot.
ISBN: | 9781108019613 |
Publication date: | 16th September 2010 |
Author: | George Willis Cooke |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 450 pages |
Series: | Cambridge Library Collection - Literary Studies |
Genres: |
Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 |