George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, one of the leading English novelists of the

19th century. Her novels, most famously 'Middlemarch', are celebrated for their realism and
psychological insights.
George Eliot was born on 22 November 1819 in rural Warwickshire. When her mother died in
1836, Eliot left school to help run her father's household. In 1841, she moved with her father to
Coventry and lived with him until his death in 1849. Eliot then travelled in Europe, eventually
settling in London.
In 1850, Eliot began contributing to the 'Westminster Review', a leading journal for philosophical
radicals, and later became its editor. She was now at the centre of a literary circle through which
she met George Henry Lewes, with whom she lived until his death in 1878. Lewes was married
and their relationship caused a scandal. Eliot was shunned by friends and family.
. In 1851, she met the philosopher George Henry Lewes. Lewes was already married, but she
spent the next 20 years of her life with him.
Lewes encouraged Eliot to write. In 1856, she began 'Scenes of Clerical Life', stories about the
people of her native Warwickshire, which were published in 'Blackwood's Magazine'. Her first
novel, 'Adam Bede', followed in 1859 and was a great success. She used a male pen name to
ensure her works were taken seriously in an era when female authors were usually associated
with romantic novels.
Her other novels include 'The Mill on the Floss' (1860), 'Silas Marner' (1861), 'Romola' (1863),
'Middlemarch' (1872) and 'Daniel Deronda' (1876). The popularity of Eliot's novels brought
social acceptance, and Lewes and Eliot's home became a meeting place for writers and
intellectuals.
After Lewes' death Eliot married a friend, John Cross, who was 20 years her junior. She died on
22 December 1880 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery in north London.
The young Evans was obviously intelligent and a voracious reader. Because she was not
considered physically beautiful, and thus not thought to have much chance of marriage, and
because of her intelligence, her father invested in an education not often afforded women.
[5] From ages five to nine, she boarded with her sister Chrissey at Miss Latham's school
in Attleborough, from ages nine to thirteen at Mrs. Wallington's school in Nuneaton, and from
ages thirteen to sixteen at Miss Franklin's school in Coventry. At Mrs. Wallington's school, she
was taught by the evangelical Maria Lewisto whom her earliest surviving letters are
addressed. In the religious atmosphere of the Miss Franklin's school, Evans was exposed to a
quiet, disciplined belief opposed to evangelicalism.[6]
After age sixteen, Eliot had little formal education.[7] Thanks to her father's important role on
the estate, she was allowed access to the library of Arbury Hall, which greatly aided her selfeducation and breadth of learning. Her classical education left its mark; Christopher Stray has
observed that "George Eliot's novels draw heavily on Greek literature (only one of her books can
be printed correctly without the use of a Greek typeface), and her themes are often influenced by
Greek tragedy".[8] Her frequent visits to the estate also allowed her to contrast the wealth in
which the local landowner lived with the lives of the often much poorer people on the estate, and
different lives lived in parallel would reappear in many of her works. The other important early
influence in her life was religion. She was brought up within a low church Anglican family, but
at that time the Midlands was an area with a growing number of religious dissenters.