George Eliot in Venice
The World Before Her, Deborah Weisgall, 2008
George Eliot 
Novel by a writer well versed in the arts takes us on an intimate tour of Venice through the eyes of two women, married apparently for financial security; Marian Evans (George Eliot), who visited Venice on her honeymoon in 1880 at age 60; and fictional sculptor Caroline Spingold, who accompanies her financial wheeler-dealer American husband to Venice in 1980.
Whistler’s Venice 
The author imagines a meeting between Marian Evans and the painter James Whistler who was in Venice at the time of her honeymoon. Marian Evan’s circle includes her deceased long time lover George Henry Lewes, probable lover Herbert Spencer, John Chapman, Franz Liszt, Robert and Clara Schumann, and other luminaries of the age. The writing of these sections is in a style typical of the period of Henry James.
The sections dealing with American Caroline suffers by comparison though both take us inside rare Churches and Palazzos of Venice including the Jewish ghetto and the lagoon where rare glimpses of the Dolomites can be seen. We wait impatiently to return to the Marian Evans tale. Still, this work is well researched and well imagined and worth reading.