SOURCE: Vance, Norman. “Law, Religion and the Unity of Felix Holt.” In George Eliot: Centenary Essays and an Unpublished Fragment, edited by Anne Smith, pp. 103-23. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble, 1980.

In the following essay, Vance defends the unity and coherence of Felix Holt, concentrating on issues of land ownership and religious dissent, and comparing the period of the novel's setting with the period in which it was written.

Felix Holt, the Radical has not been fully appreciated. Commentators have complained of the needlessly complicated legal plot, the apparently disappointing issue of the radical promise of hero and title, and a lack of overall imaginative coherence.¹ This essay seeks to review these criticisms against the background of the 1830s and of the 1860s, the historical setting of the novel and the intellectual climate of the decade in which it was written.

The most obvious link between the two...