Lawrence Rainey writes:

The marmoreal lustre of our received image of Eliot is dimmed by this unrelenting catalogue of blunders. The result contradicts the glossier image of Eliot presented by the previous version of this volume. It is as if the waspish elegance and dogmatic certitude of his published prose were being coated with layer after layer of fine dust, the grit of everyday experience, the messiness of the ordinary. At the heart of this revised volume lies a mild but real paradox: the source of its triumph is its emphasis on the trivial.

(LRB 3 December 2009)

Faber and Faber | Hardback 912 pp. |ISBN: 9780571235094