1. Life and contexts. Childhood and education (1819-35) ; At Griff and Coventry (1835-49) ; The years of independence (1849-54) ; The budding novelist (1854-9) ; The professional author (1859-68) ; The literary triumph (1868-76) ; Widowhood and marriage (1876-80)

2. Works. Scenes of clerical life (1857-8) ; Adam Bede (1859) ; The mill on the floss (1860) ; Silas Marner (1861) ; Romola (1862-3) ; Felix Holt, the radical (1866) ; Middlemarch (1871-2) ; Daniel Deronda (1876) ; Other prose: 'The lifted veil' (1859), 'Brother Jacob' (1860, published 1864), Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879), Literary criticism and other journals writing ; Poetry: The Spanish gypsy (1868), The legend of Jubal and other poems (1874, 1878)

3. Criticism. Early biographies and criticism ; Beginnings of modern criticism ; Biographical studies and related works ; General critical studies ; Feminist criticism ; Psychoanalytical criticism ; Historical criticism ; Post-colonial criticism ; George Eliot in context

4. Chronology.