SOURCE: A letter to John Blackwood on July 9, 1860, in The George Eliot Letters, Vol. III: 1859-1861, edited by Gordon S. Haight, Yale University Press, 1954, pp. 317-18.

In the following letter to her publisher, Eliot responds to Edward Bulwer-Lytton's criticism of The Mill on the Floss.

My dear Sir

I return Sir Edward's critical letter, which I have read with much interest. On two points I recognize the justice of his criticism. First, that Maggie is made to appear too passive in the scene of quarrel in the Red Deeps. If my book were still in MS., I should—now that the defect is suggested to me—alter, or rather expand that scene. Secondly, that the tragedy is not adequately prepared. This is a defect which I felt even while writing the third volume, and have felt ever since the MS. left me. The "epische Breite" into which I...