Kathy O’Shaughnessy has reviewed books for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times, Financial Times, Independent, The Observer, TLS, New Statesman, The Spectator, and others. She has worked as Deputy Editor on the Literary Review, Arts & Books Editor of Vogue, Literary Editor of The European, and Deputy Editor of The Telegraph Arts & Books. Her stories have been published in Faber’s First Fictions, and she edited and introduced Drago Stambuk’s poems, Incompatible Animals.
‘The portrait of the author is tender and fascinating; like Eliot,
Kathy O’Shaughnessy is compassionate about her characters’ weakness
… a superb portrait of an extraordinary woman.’
*The Times*
‘A sensitive, impeccably researched and deeply pleasurable debut
novel ... As the best historical novels do, it absorbs the reader
to such an extent that, even if they know the outline of the story,
each page is a revelation.’
*The Economist*
‘I devoured this, and it made me happy and excited. It reminded me
of Toibin's The Master: its representations of the psychology of
the characters, their shifting ground, variegated moods, seemed to
work in something like the same way, and with the same fineness.
It's really beautifully tender, subtle, imaginative, saturated
authentically (to my mind anyway) in another time and
thought-world.’
*Tessa Hadley, author of Late in the Day*
‘O’Shaughnessy’s subtle, compelling, intensely feminine portrait
explores the inner life of her sensitive heroine with the fine
emotional intelligence that makes George Eliot’s own novels so
remarkable.’
*TLS*
‘Compelling … a tender and haunting study.’
*The Financial Times*
‘Richly and sensitively described ... O’Shaughnessy does us the
favour of reminding us what an underrated erotic writer Eliot
is.’
*The Sunday Telegraph*
‘The novelist enters where biographers fear to tread … There is no
doubt that O’Shaughnessy has saturated herself in the most
important biographical and critical literature on Eliot.’
*The Guardian*
‘An accomplished tribute to one of our greatest authors.’
*The Mail on Sunday*
‘A revealing debut novel … a fascinating read.’
*BBC Radio 4 Open Book*
‘This sensitive fictionalisation … is thoroughly
absorbing.’
*Daily Mail*
‘The Eliot strand predominates as if Eliot herself was dictating
like a whispering ghost.’
*Irish Examiner*
‘O’Shaughnessy’s writing is full of delicious words … and brilliant
descriptions. She is full of keen insights into Evans’s character …
This is an astute, skilful book.’
*Literary Review*
‘In Love with George Eliot is a clever, unconventional approach to
the great novelist's life; it is easy to imagine that Marian Evans
herself would have approved of the playful thoughtfulness with
which Kathy O’Shaughnessy brings the private person behind George
Eliot’s public success alive.’
*Dr Ruth Scurr, author of John Aubrey: My Own Life*
‘Henry James was but one of many beguiled by Marian Evans (aka
George Eliot) … In lucid, unshowy prose, O’Shaughnessy brings them
all to life.’
*Saga*
‘A layered, tender portrait.’
*The Herald*
‘In Love with George Eliot is a feverishly intense and
beautifully rendered first novel, especially in its detail and
sensitivity, that brings to life the woman and the legend.’
*Readings*
‘Classy, beautifully written and richly imagined — a
novel that opens a door onto the past.’
*Nicci Gerrard, author of The Twilight Hour*
‘In Love with George Eliot is a real pleasure to read, even if you
haven’t read any of her novels.’
*ANZ LitLovers*
‘She gives a new life to these long dead, overdressed people,
writing of them with an attentive and loving eye, forgiving them
and understanding. Her take on the central mystery of Eliot’s later
life – marriage to Johnny Cross, a family friend to both her and
Lewes and 20 years her junior, and on Cross’ suicide attempt on
their Italian honeymoon – is painfully believable.’
*The Age*
‘In this beautifully imagined novel, the rich intellectual world in
which Marian lived is brought alive.’ FOUR STARS
*Good Reading*
‘Crack this one open at the beach and get ready to become obsessed
with the story of England’s greatest woman novelist.’
*Frankie Magazine*
‘O’Shaughnessy crafts in her luminous debut an evocative portrait
of English author George Eliot … passion and drama … Historical
fiction fans won’t want to miss this.’
*Publishers Weekly*
‘O’Shaughnessy's leisurely, thoroughly researched and sympathetic
debut novel imagines some key periods in the life of Marian Evans,
better known as novelist George Eliot … [A] record of the complex
and often fraught emotional life of a notable novelist.’
*Booklist*
‘At the beginning of her career, the words of her fiction became a
kind of smoke screen for Marian Evans, whose journey from anonymous
obscurity to worldwide fame under her masculine pen name is
delicately charted in Kathy O’Shaughnessy’s debut novel, In Love
with George Eliot. Working back and forth between the present-day
world of fractious Eliot scholars and the 19th-century world of
their emotionally fragile subject, O’Shaughnessy concentrates on
the private ambitions and uncertainties of her characters, drawing
on Eliot’s letters for inspiration.’
*New York Times ‘Best Books to Give This Year’*
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