Elma Stuart
An admirer of the works of George Eliot, Elma Stuart came to be regarded as a 'spiritual daughter' to the author and lies buried next to her in Highgate Cemetery.
Elma Stuart, after an unhappy start to her own life, read the works of Eliot and was comforted by them, so decided to express her thanks by making a present. She learned carpentry skills and made a book slide, which she sent to George Eliot in 1872, care of Blackwell, the publisher, with a letter, in which she declares, 'What for years you have been to me, how you have comforted my sorrows, peopled my loneliness, added to my happiness and bettered in every way my whole nature, you can never know'.
This was the beginning of a long correspondence between the two women. The letters from Elma are mostly lost but George Eliot's replies can still be read online at openlibrary.org
Elma Stuart
An admirer of the works of George Eliot, Elma Stuart came to be regarded as a 'spiritual daughter' to the author and lies buried next to her in Highgate Cemetery.
Elma Stuart, after an unhappy start to her own life, read the works of Eliot and was comforted by them, so decided to express her thanks by making a present. She learned carpentry skills and made a book slide, which she sent to George Eliot in 1872, care of Blackwell, the publisher, with a letter, in which she declares, 'What for years you have been to me, how you have comforted my sorrows, peopled my loneliness, added to my happiness and bettered in every way my whole nature, you can never know'.
This was the beginning of a long correspondence between the two women. The letters from Elma are mostly lost but George Eliot's replies can still be read online at openlibrary.org