Impressions of Theophrastus Such (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Published in 1879, this is Eliot’s last completed work, and perhaps her most underrated. It consists of a series of essays told by a nameless English bachelor. Though critics harshly judged the work as “ponderous and moralizing” when it was published, today’s readers will recognize Eliot’s keen intelligence, sharp wit, and intriguing insights in such essays as “A Too Deferential Man,” “A Political Molecule,” and “Only Temper.”