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Which event inspired the election riot in Felix Holt, the Radical?
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George Eliot
George Eliot, engraving derived from a chalk drawing (1865) by Sir Frederic William Burton.
The election riot depicted in George Eliot’s novel Felix Holt, the Radical was inspired by a real-life riot she witnessed in Nuneaton in December 1832.1
The novel is set during the period of intense political agitation surrounding the passage of the Reform Bill, which aimed to reform the British electoral system by expanding voting privileges to industrial towns. In the story, the protagonist, Felix Holt, is imprisoned after accidentally killing a man while attempting to pacify the riot.21