[The Progress of the Intellect]

In 1850 John Chapman published in two volumes Robert William Mackay's The Progress of the Intellect, as Exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews. In October of that year the two men, publisher and author, meeting George Eliot at the home of her friend Charles Bray in Coventry, suggested to her that she review the book. The resulting article was George Eliot's first contribution to the Westminster Review, the quarterly in which her most important work as a journalist appeared. Within a year of the publication of her review, Chapman had purchased the Westminster, and George Eliot had gone to London to serve as its editor. The ability she had shown in her review of Mackay was certainly a part of the reason why Chapman eagerly sought her to take the position.