An Amazing Marriage
By George Meredith. Introduction by Colin Heston
When An Amazing Marriage was published in 1895, George Meredith stood at the summit of his literary career, celebrated as one of the most intellectually formidable and stylistically daring novelists of the Victorian age. By this time, Meredith had forged a reputation for works that combined psychological subtlety, social satire, and philosophical inquiry, appealing more to the discerning literary elite than to the broader Victorian reading public. An Amazing Marriage emerges as one of his last full-length novels and, fittingly, revisits many of the themes that had preoccupied him throughout his life—gender relations, the institution of marriage, the constraints of social conventions, and the inner lives of women.
The very title, An Amazing Marriage, signals Meredith's ironic stance toward the Victorian ideal of marriage. Rather than a romantic or sentimental union, marriage is often portrayed in his works as a contested arena, where conflicting expectations, social pressures, and personal ambitions collide. In this novel, Meredith offers a biting critique of the marital conventions of his era, presenting a union that is both remarkable and troubling in its complexity.
Although An Amazing Marriage is less frequently read today than Meredith’s earlier masterpieces, it remains a vital document of the tensions that defined late-Victorian society. Its psychological acuity, progressive gender politics, and sharp critique of social hypocrisy retain their resonance in the modern era, where debates about marriage, gender roles, and personal autonomy continue to evolve.
For contemporary readers, the novel offers both a window into the anxieties of the past and a mirror reflecting the enduring challenges of balancing love, freedom, and social expectation. Aminta’s journey toward self-realization, with all its attendant risks and uncertainties, anticipates the narratives of countless women in the century that followed.
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