It was Eliot's last published writing and her most experimental, taking the form of a series of literary essays by an imaginary minor scholar whose eccentric character is revealed through his work.
II "Looking Backward": Discusses Theophrastus Such's boyhood in the Midlands, containing some memories of George Eliot's own childhood in Warwickshire.
III "How We Encourage Research": A devastating and (stiff upper lip) hilarious account of the way one titan of science obliterates the career of a young challenger in order to defend his turf, before quietly stealing his idea and publishing it as his own.
Eliot denied George Henry Lewes was the model for Causabon; however, significant aspects of the character match with Lewes's experience as a man of science, including his response to criticism in "determin[ing] to prove his own theories scientifically infallible," his status as an "unfulfilled researcher," and his lack of success in garnering respect and acknowledgement with his research, which also applies to Proteus Merman.
[3] Both situations display how single-minded focus puts a strain on relationships and how a certain flexibility of mind and attention is healthy and something to be grateful for.
VII "A Political Molecule": Cotton manufacturer Spike alliances with businessmen for his own profit, though his actions are for the benefit of the group.
X "Debasing the Moral Currency": Theophrastus Such expresses his worry over the breakdown of civilization, referencing classical texts and acts of violence that occurred in the 1800s.
XI "The Wasp Credited with the Honeycomb": Theophrastus Such mocks communism and the concept that there is a definitive origin for ideas.
XVII, "Shadows of the Coming Race": This chapter represents a discussion between Theophrastus Such and his friend Trost, a man with great interest in technology, about the future and the use of machines.
The Sheffield Daily Telegraph compared the work to "those numerous preliminary sketches which a painter makes in the course of elaborating a great picture.
"[14] The Chicago Daily Tribune likewise saw Impressions of Theophrastus Such as the possible groundwork for another of George Eliot's novels, never to be fully realized.
Many of the reviews acknowledge the writing within Impressions of Theophrastus Such to be clever but its long-windedness and inability to evoke an emotional response renders little enjoyment for the readers.
[16][17][18] The Pall Mall Gazette believed this chapter to be the only section harkening back to the skill and style displayed in George Eliot's celebrated works.
[19] The Standard believed Theophrastus Such showed brilliance in its satirical and humorous hints but lacked depth, giving off an ephemeral air and distancing readers from the book's characters.
Emily Butler-Probst's essay, "They Read with Their Own Eye from Nature's Own Book: Imagining Whales in Impressions of Theophrastus Such" (2021), focuses on the chapter concerning Proteus Merman (Ch.
Though it does have a cast of characters acting out scenes and exchanging dialogue, Impression of Theophrastus Such does not tell a story, as did her novels.
Thompson especially points out George Eliot's deviation in her decision to write her last work in first-person rather than the third-person narrator of her novels and how this changed her usual characters from "fully realized and psychologically complex" to "typified [and] one-dimensional".
According to Bodenheimer, readers felt betrayed by the change of tune in George Eliot's works; along with several other recent scholars, Bodenheimer argues for reading Impressions of Theophrastus Such as a work of fiction, noting that Theophrastus is a "self-reflexive fictional character whose failings and contradictions are the real subject of the book".
[22] The book was written in the form of reflexive essays, but it is still fiction because the people and events Theophrastus Such observes are imagined.