Mr. Gilfil's Love Story

George Eliot’s first fiction was written in 1856–7, with ‘Amos Barton’ being published in Blackwood’s Magazine in January 1857, ‘Mr Gilfil’s Love Story’ between March and June and ‘Janet’s Repentance’ from July to November. The second of these three, ‘Mr Gilfil’s Love Story’, presents a historically accurate picture of British attitudes towards Italy and the Italians in the period preceding the French Revolution and reflects Eliot’s interest in and engagement with Italy. The main character is not in fact Maynard Gilfil but an orphaned Italian girl, Caterina Sarti, brought back to England by Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel in 1773. The story deals with the meeting of English and Italian cultures both in Italy and England, and registers a range of anglocentric attitudes towards foreigners in general and Italians in particular, attitudes which Eliot’s narrator at times appears to resist, and at others to embrace. Whereas in her fiction until Romola, Eliot is mainly concerned with English provincial life, in ‘Mr Gilfil’ we observe a concern to incorporate a European perspective which takes the form of an exploration of cultural relationships. This concern with Italy was in itself the continuation of an interest already present in her journalism.