Scenes of Clerical Life

First published in serial form by Blackwood’s Magazine in 1857 and in book form by the same publisher a year later, Scenes of a Clerical Life was Eliot’s first work to see print and the first in which she used her famous pseudonym. The novel is composed of three separate novellas covering the lives of three religious men in an around the fictitious town of Milby. Rather than being a tract about religious belief, the stories are more concerned with the earthly experiences of the men and how their interactions with everyday life come to influence their attitudes to God. Mistakenly taken for a male author – understandably given the pseudonym – the novel gained a mixed reaction, notably there were complaints from certain clergymen who thought – not without reason – that characters in the book were based on them. Subsequently, it’s been noted not just for its realism, but also its incidental comments on religious practice and belief.