Lewes, George Henry (1817-1878)

A productive writer and critic, George Henry Lewes lived with George Eliot from 1854 until his death in 1878. Though little is known of his childhood, Lewes appears to have grown up plagued with financial problems and an unstable family unit. He found work as a clerk, and eventually attempted to break into the literary scene with a biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley. After meeting Shelley's friend Leigh Hunt, he hoped to forge a personal connection with Shelley's widow, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Unfortunately for Lewes, Shelley's widow would not support the proposed biography. While the biography did not come to fruition, Leigh Hunt and his son Thornton Hunt remained a part of Lewes's life.

Lewes's wife, Agnes, birthed three children to Lewes (Charles, Thornton, and Herbert), but by the late 1840s, their domestic relationship was withering. Because of his own beliefs in free sexual relations, probably borrowed from Shelley, Lewes allowed and perhaps even approved when Thornton Hunt began a sexual relationship with Agnes, which produced the first of four children in 1850. Lewes signed his name to the birth certificates for even Hunt's children, which made divorce options complicated if not impossible later on.

While Lewes became successful in his writing endeavors, he fell into a great depression because of his domestic life. Even as he garnered praise for his works, including his popular A Biographical History of Philosophy and his many articles written for various magazines, Lewes did not recover from his depression until he met George Eliot through a common friend, Herbert Spencer. The two became lovers, perhaps as early as 1853, and by July 1854, when Lewes and Eliot traveled to Germany together and stayed on the continent for nearly 8 months, they had established themselves as a couple. Lewes went to Germany to conduct research for his Life of Goethe, while Eliot ostensibly joined him to provide German-to-English translation assistance. As it turned out, Lewes's Life of Goethe, which never mentions Eliot, not only enjoyed several reprintings during Lewes's lifetime but also was his most successful work. Lewes turned to more scientific articles after his Goethe biography, including a series of articles (later collected in book form) on marine life written while he and Eliot travelled to the English and Welsh coasts. Lewes sent his two elder sons to boarding school on the continent, possibly to save them from the gossip that plagued Lewes and Eliot in England. It took Lewes three years to reveal to his sons the fact of his relationship with Eliot. Thrilled to learn she was the celebrity author of Adam Bede, the boys accepted her and eventually would call her 'Mutter.'

It was Lewes's support that encouraged Eliot to begin writing fiction. From the beginning, Lewes acted as an intermediary between Eliot and her publishers. While their relationship undoubtedly was vital in motivating George Eliot, some critics question Lewes's methods of isolating her from negative feedback. However, Lewes evidently found pleasure rather than jealousy in her success and wrote adoringly of her in letters to friends.

In his later years, Lewes became editor to several important magazines, including the Cornhill Magazine in 1862 and the Fortnightly Review in 1865. Two of his children moved to Africa in this period to farm, though his son Thornton, 'Thornie,' moved back in 1869 after contracting spinal meningitis. Lewes and Eliot nursed him until his death in that year. Herbert, 'Bertie,' his youngest son died also, of tuberculosis, in Africa before he could return to England. At the end of his life, Lewes strove to complete his 5-volume magnum opus, Problems of Life and Mind, that combined physiology and psychology. The final two volumes would have remained unfinished had Eliot not picked up the pen after Lewes's death. Lewes was praised posthumously by many of his contemporaries for his long, successful life as a writer.

George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett, https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org

George Henry Lewes (1817-1878), Lewes, George Henry (1817-1878), Social Network Gallery, George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett, https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed November 11, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/97206