Aspects and Impressions

A passing glimpse of George Eliot in a London carriage becomes the starting point for Edmund Gosse's reflections on literary fame. He recalls her appearance, the authority her novels held among serious thinkers and the sharply divided responses of other writers. His essay weighs the strength of her early fiction against the strain of more ambitious intellectual work, paying particular attention to the place of remembered experience in her stories.

Published in 1922, this collection brings personal observations together with the history and criticism of modern literature. Its French portraits trace the habits and fortunes of poets and members of literary circles, including Gombauld's awkward life at court and Malleville's preference for informal meetings. Gosse moves between judgments of writing and details of the people who produced it. Readers interested in the making of literary reputations will find both critical argument and small scenes of social life.