the lifted veil    george eliot Published the same year as her first novel Adam Bede this overlooked work displays the gifts for which George Eliot would become famousgritty realism psychological insight and idealistic moralizing It is unique from all her other writing however in that it represents the only time she ever used a firstperson narrator and it is the only time she wrote about the supernatural The tale of a man who is incapacitated by visions of the future and the cacophony of overheard thoughts and yet who cant help trying to subvert his vividly glimpsed destiny it is easy to read The Lifted Veil as being autobiographically revealingof Eliots sensitivity to public opinion and her awareness that her days concealed behind a pseudonym were doomed to a tragic unveiling as indeed came to pass soon after this novellas publication But it is easier still to read the story as the exciting and genuine precursor of a moody new form as well as an absorbing early masterpiece of suspense