Conference Report- The Mills on the Floss

\u27The Mill on the Floss is everyone\u27s favourite novel\u27 was the provocative declaration that launched the conference, devoted to Eliot\u27s second novel, held at the Institute of English Studies on 6 November 2010. Barbara Hardy\u27s opening statement was given some weight by the day\u27s papers which, in tackling subjects as diverse as translation, inheritance, idleness, and adaptation, repeatedly expressed the speakers\u27 highly personal relationship with the novel. In the first of two hour-long papers, entitled \u27Inheritance and parental investment in The Mill on the Floss\u27 , David Amigoni (Exeter) offered fresh insights into the intersection of aesthetic and scientific concerns in Eliot\u27s work by demonstrating how Eliot found science of assistance in exploring the range of narratives on parental investment circulating in the 1860s. Amigoni considered how Mr. Tulliver seeks to determine the intellectual capital of his children and ensure its transmission, and in doing so drew on David C. Geary\u27s essay \u27Evolution of Paternal Investment\u27 , which explores how the parental investor weighs the value of educational and reproductive successes. When Mr. Tulliver ponders that \u27it seems a bit of a pity ... as the lad should take after the mother\u27s side instead of the little wench\u27, Eliot presents demotic speech meeting cutting-edge Victorian science. Inheritance was also a theme of Kathryn Hughes\u27s (UEA) \u27Who were the Dodsons? Uncovering Traces of Family History in The Mill on the Floss\u27, which demonstrated how our understanding of Eliot\u27s writing process can be enriched by mining her childhood environment. Hughes vividly and humorously evoked the close-knit community of the Pearson sisters, who, unlike the Dodsons\u27 response to Maggie, appear to have appreciated Mary Ann\u27s talents. Their shared concern with appropriate family conduct is illustrated by the will made by Eliot\u27s aunt Mary, which left Eliot her initialled cutlery, a gesture evoked in Mrs. Tulliver\u27s fear of her marked belongings being sold to strangers. Another bequest was considered in the form of a dress donated to the GEF by a descendant of Mrs. Johnson (an inspiration for Mrs. Pullet). The dress had been worn in a Nuneaton performance of Adam Bede in 1890 by \u27Mrs. Poyser\u27, who left intriguing recollections of how Eliot\u27s childhood community tried to map itself onto the novels