George Eliot Illustrations Gallery
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The George Eliot Archive holds 355 illustrations of Eliot's novels, stories, and poems, the primary sources for understanding how early readers pictured her characters and how publishers presented her writing to the reading public.
Most were made over a century ago for premium editions and are hard to find in their original printed form. Drawn from Beverley Park Rilett's personal collection of antique books and from borrowed volumes, the gallery draws chiefly on the Thomas Y. Crowell George Eliot's Works (1894), L. G. Seguin's A Souvenir of George Eliot (1888), the George Eliot Portfolio (1888), and the Dana Estes Complete Poems (1886).
Its centerpiece is Frederic Leighton's Romola series, commissioned by George Smith in 1862–63 after he lured Eliot away from John Blackwood with a large advance. Romola is the only Eliot novel illustrated during its first publication. Scanned from Smith's 1880 two-volume gift edition, these are the first high-resolution images of the complete series published online.
Our editorial work
We began collecting and publishing high resolution scans of public domain illustrations in 2018, but compilation is only part of what this Archive collection offers. Every illustration carries two kinds of description written for two different purposes:
- Alt-text makes the gallery usable by readers who cannot see the image: "Grayscale illustration of a boy and girl walking together in a forest."
- Contextual descriptions do what alt-text cannot, placing the illustration within Eliot's text: "Philip and Maggie walking together in the Red Deeps."
Alt-text was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by graduate student assistants Kaylen Michaelis, Alexis Stoffers, and other editorial assistants in 2022-23.
The contextual descriptions were researched and written in Spring and Fall 2025, with final editing in Spring 2026 by student interns working with Dr. Rilett. Together they turn a set of scanned images into a scholarly resource that can be searched, taught, and cited.
The collection and its descriptions are published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, so researchers may download, share, and build on this work with attribution.
Corrections, missing illustrations, and artist attributions are welcome, with special thanks to collector Michael Steele for his help providing many scans and identifying several creators. Please contact project director Beverley Park Rilett.
'You really have no idea what an impression it conveys when you say you are a radical.'
'Yet quiet, lowly as a meek white dove, / That with its presence teaches gentleness.'
'Would sing as finely to this suffering child, / As at the court where princes on him smiled.'
'Why did she stand before me with the candle in her hand, with her cruel contemptuous eyes fixed on me, and the glittering serpent, like a familiar demon, on her breast?'
'While this conversation was going forward, Dickey had been furtively stroking and kissing the soft white hand.'
'When any master holds/ 'Twixt chin and hand a violin of mine, / He will be glad that Stradivari lived.'
'There were trim cheerful villages.'
'Then Jubal poured his triumph in a song.'
'The soul that was born anew to music was born anew to love'
The Reverend Lyon receives a Christian of sorts
'The minister asked him if he knew where he had left that knife.'
'The house was held / As if a storm were listening with delight / And hushed its thunder.'
'The evening of our life, love, shall go and / Come no more.'
'Suppose, now, you get the money yourself, and save me the trouble, eh?'
Shepperton Church As It Was
'She stood, divested of all personal considerations, whether of vanity or shyness.'
'She sinks down on her knees, takes the dear hand in her arms, and kisses the cold forehead.'
'She retreated to her father's chair again, and held him round the neck.'
'She lingered at the door before she gathered courage to knock.'
'She heard herself called "Mother!" and felt a light kiss on each cheek.'
Rufus Lyon encounters Annette Ledru in distress
'Our meadow-path had memorable spots: / One where it bridged a tiny rivulet.'
Original Illustrated Initial from 'Brother Jacob' in the Cornhill Magazine (1864)
'My dear - dear - husband - you have been - very - good to me.'
'Mrs. Holt sat on a stool, in singular relief against the pedestal of the Apollo.'
[Maggie was] ‘looking darkly radiant from under her beaver-bonnet’
'Lizzie advanced without hesitation, and put out one hand, while she fingered her coral necklace with the other.'
'Let me go, you scoundrel,' said Harold, fiercely, 'or I'll be the death of you.'
Just on the slope by a clump of laurels, where they can see the sunbeams sparkling among the water-lilies
Janet at Mrs. Pettifer's Door
'It is coming, Maggie!' Tom said, in a deep hoarse voice, loosing the oars, and clasping her.
If, because of anything her brother said to him, he went away
'I've made two wills, and I'm going to burn one. Now you do as I tell you.'
'How I pity all the other girls at the archery meeting!'
'His doublet loose, his right arm backward flung, /His left caressing close the long-necked lute.'
Hetty Sorrel and Captain Donnithorne in Mrs Poyser's dairy
'He stroked the satin head, and said in his gentlest voice, "How do you do, Lizzie? will you give me a kiss?"'
'He spread his tents upon the grassy plain / Which, eastward widening like the open main, / Showed the first whiteness 'neath the morning star.'
'He sought the screen / Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen'
'He pushed her to the entrance... and thrust her out.'
'He felt his heart begin to beat violently, and for a few moments he was unable to stretch out his hand and grasp the restored treasure.'
'He cried again - and I held my hand, and my heart said, "Die!" - and he sank.'
'Grandcourt saw it and saw that it was attracting Deronda’s notice.'
'Felix went straight to this platform and stepped upon it, crying "Halt!"'
'Father, I have not been good to you; But I will be, I will be,' said Esther, laying her head on his knee.
'Could this be his little sister come back to him in a dream?'
'Come now, you'll say I used to be a Tory.'
'Circling, she lightly bends and lifts on high / The multitudinous-sounding tambourine.'
'But he who wears a solitary chain heading the file, has turned to face Fedalma'
'Ay, 'tis a sword / That parts the Spanish noble and the true Zincala'
'And you will put the crown to the mortification of my life, Harold?'
'Across the homestead to the rookery elms, / Whose tall old trunks had each a grassy mound'
'A steadfast form that held him with its thought'
'A man with a sabre in his hand was taking the command'
