2019 marks the 200th birth anniversary of George Eliot, one of the most important writers of the 19th century. Eliot produced several works during her lifetime but perhaps the most famous is Middlemarch, considered to be one of the greatest novels to be written in the English language.
Eliot, whose real name was Mary Ann Evans, visited Jersey in the summer of 1857 and stayed for three months with her partner George Lewes. The couple arrived by boat on Friday 15th May and found lodgings with the Amy family at Rosa Cottage in Gorey, on the east coast of the Island. It seems Eliot developed a great fondness for the Island during her stay and wrote of Jersey as “a sweet spot in our memories - while memories last.”
This stamp issue shows Jersey as it might have been seen through the eyes of George Eliot in the summer of 1857.
2019 marks the 200th birth anniversary of George Eliot, one of the most important writers of the 19th century. Eliot produced several works during her...