Abstract
Drawing on recent work by Paul Fyfe and Ruth Livesey, the essay explores the dangers of relying on horses for transportation, economic gain and pleasure, showing how Eliot transmuted this reality into formal conventions that marked turning points in her narratives. On a trip to Italy in 1861, Eliot’s horse falls on the edge of a precipice. She is unhurt, but Lewes, who sees her fall, feels “very sick and faint from the shock” (Lewes Journals). While such hazards of foreign travel may seem extraordinary, accidents involving horses were common both in everyday life and in Victorian fiction. Horse accidents appear in Eliot’s fiction including “Janet’s Repentance,” The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda. The essay concludes with a discussion of the tension between Eliot’s representation of horses as commodities and her sympathy with horses as sentient creatures.
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Henry, N. (2019). “It Was All over with Wildfire”: Horse Accidents in George Eliot’s Fiction. In: Arnold, J., Marz Harper, L. (eds) George Eliot. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10626-3_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10626-3_9
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