Hi, everyone. The next chapter will contain no video links because it’s 100% mine. No backstory necessary. It picks up exactly where the last one leaves off. But I wanted to share a few tidbits from Chapter Ten, and they’re both completely independent of the TV show.
Marian Evans Lewes
First, one of the women authors Belle saw on the shelf in her library is Marian Lewes. That was the preferred name of the woman who was born Mary Ann Evans, but who published under the pseudonym George Eliot. She took the name “George” to honor her all-but-lawfully-wedded husband, George Henry Lewes. He encouraged her as a novelist, and because he himself was a literary critic, he was in a position to help her career advance. She felt she owed him everything, so “George Eliot” is an acronym to pay tribute to him: “to George EL-I-Owe-iT.”
Their marriage wasn’t legal. Mr. Lewes’ first wife had an affair with another man, and she ended up having a mental breakdown, so she could not legally consent to the divorce. Marian and George were “living in sin” according to the standards of the day. They may have been Victorians, but they were pretty avant garde. Yet they were totally loyal to each other and weren’t terribly unconventional otherwise. They would have made their marriage legal if they could have. So though she was “George Eliot” on paper and in literary history, in her personal life, she preferred “Marian” or “Mrs. Lewes.”
Believe it or not, she’ll figure into my novel later, specifically through her novels Silas Marner, which is the most famous, Middlemarch, which is considered her masterpiece, and Daniel Deronda, which is my personal favorite because it depicts Jewish themes and characters in a positive light. (Hmmm. Perhaps that’ll be another subject for this Substack.)
The Periodic Table
Second, I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. You may recall that when Rumple shows the Periodic Table to Belle, he compares it to a map with “noble gases in the east, metals in the center and west.”
That metaphor comes from The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, which is a pretty good book for history buffs and science-phobes to get more acquainted with the science of chemistry.
A Meme to End on
And one last thing. Here’s a meme of the last words of Chapter Ten. As I said, it will take you right to Chapter Eleven.
This was a great literary history lesson.