Wakem, Philip

Maggie Tulliver's lover, a shy and sensitive hump back; a clever artist. He and Tom Tulliver are at school together, and it is there that he meets Maggie and the two become friends. In spite of the enmity between the two families, he later prevails on Maggie to renew this friendship and they meet secretly in the Red Deeps to read and talk and he becomes her accepted lover. They are parted for a time but his love for her is his strongest feeling and he believes that he has overcome most of the obstacles in their way until Maggie and Stephen Guest fall in love. M. d'Albert Durade, George Eliot's landlord during her stay at Geneva, is said to have been the original of some traits in the character of Philip Wakem. He was a man of great refinement, an artist and musician, small and with a humped back. (See Blind, George Eliot, p. 70 ; Browning, Life of George Eliot, p. 81.)

<em>The Mill on the Floss</em>

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