In 1856 George Eliot wrote an article entitled ‘Silly Novels by Lady Novelists’ for the radical Westminster Review. Sometimes offered as evidence of Eliot's lack of empathy with other women writers and her failure as a feminist, the article comes at the very moment when women's writing is beginning to be considered seriously as professional writing, perhaps for the first time, at least by women. Eliot's essay is in fact a call to arms, a plea to women not to prostitute their gifts because, as she points out, ‘the most mischievous form of feminine silliness is the literary form, because it tends to confirm the popular prejudice against the more solid education of women’. At the end of the article she writes in admiration of women writers of genius and points out that women must have ‘patient diligence, a sense of the responsibility involved in publication, and an appreciation of the sacredness of the writer's art’ (p. 460). These qualities are finally distilled into one pertinent phrase, ‘precious speciality’ (p. 461), which specifically separates women's writing from that of men. Eliot cannot envisage rising altogether above conventional gender distinctions, but she can envisage a time when women's writing will be accepted as a serious contribution to the profession.

Eliot's article also expresses consciousness of a sea-change, consciousness that women at least need no longer consider themselves dainty amateurs (mere dilettantes), but should and must consider themselves as professional writers, who must approach their craft, the sacred ‘writer's art’, with the proper professional attitudes.