The Honeymoon

Listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction, The Honeymoon (2017) by Dinitia Smith is based on the life of George Eliot, famed author of  Middlemarch. When George Eliot agreed to marry John Walter Cross, twenty years her junior, in Venice in June 1880, Eliot was recovering from the death of George Henry Lewes, her beloved companion of twenty-six years. Eliot was bereft, left at the age of sixty to contemplate profound questions about her physical decline, her fading appeal, and the prospect of loneliness. In her youth, Mary Ann Evans—who would later be known as George Eliot—was a country girl, considered too plain to marry, so she educated herself in order to secure a livelihood. In an era when female novelists were objects of wonder, she became the most famous writer of her day—with a male nom de plume . The Honeymoon explores different kinds of love, and of the possibilities of redemption and happiness even in an imperfect union. “Smith’s portrait of Eliot’s honeymoon with Cross ... plausibly brings to life a puzzling period of her life. With the historical record lacking or shrouded, it is the perfect example of when fictional storytelling about an eminent person is warranted.”— The Washington Post Dinitia Smith is the author of four novels, including The Illusionist, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her stories have appeared in numerous publications and she has won a number of awards for her writing, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. Smith is a former cultural correspondent for the New York Times specializing in literature and the arts. She has taught at Columbia University, New York University, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and elsewhere. Buy Now from Amazon Buy Now from Bookshop