George Eliot Interactive Data
In this section, “George Eliot Interactive Data,” we provide several unique, interactive, "born-digital" models that enable researchers to drill down into previously unexplored facets of the author's life, including:
- A highly detailed chronology of George Eliot’s life as visualized in two models: a branch model optimized for searching by date, and a word-searchable calendar model. This research tool provides more than 3,000 days of summaries and quotations from Eliot’s journals and letters—chronological details that provide accurate biographical information and context for Eliot’s writings.
a set of Interactive Historical Maps showing Eliot’s first trip abroad with the Brays, her four trips to Italy with Lewes, and her honeymoon trip to Italy with Cross (the latter in two versions). These maps visualize and provide details of Eliot’s itinerary, route, and sites she visited along the way. Our most recent addition is George Eliot's England, showing places from her home country important in her life and works. A interactive map of her 1854 “honeymoon” trip to Germany with Lewes, complete with illustrations and video map, will be added in fall 2024.
- George Eliot’s Social Network summarizes and visually represents Eliot's most relevant connections with 125 family members, friends, and business colleagues. More individuals will be added in future iterations.
- Dictionary of George Eliot's People and Places is a database application that allows users to quickly identify named places and characters in Eliot's works.
- The George Eliot Text Explorer is a concordance tool and resource created over a three-year period; the application required all published writings to be converted from PDFs to machine-readable TEI-encoded XML text, a process that could not be fully automated and required hindreds of hours of editing. Search for any word or phrase in any of George Eliot’s fiction, nonfiction, or poetry to see each use in context and to find related or relevant quotations instantly.
- Chapter Summaries by AI. In Fall 2023, we input ONLY George Eliot’s texts into OpenAI’s Premium large language model and collected the results for summaries, character names, and settings. We even asked for “key quotations,” with fascinating results—most predictable but some surprising.
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