Jane Austen and George Eliot

When George Eliot embarked on her career as an author in the late 1850s, the works of Jane Austen were at her side, feeding her imagination. Separated by time, circumstance and temperament, the two writers had a vital impetus in common: to prove the value of a woman's eye in a man's world. Packed with quotes from letters, diaries and the nation's favourite novels, this lively history traces the surprising connections between two of our brightest literary stars and shows how each can be illuminated by the other's light