George Eliot (Marry Anne Evans)

(1819 1880)
She was an English novelist, journalist, translator and one of the
leading writers of the Victorian era. She used a male pen name,
she said, to ensure her works would be taken seriously. Female
authors were published under their own names during Eliot's life,
but she wanted to escape the stereotype of women only writing
lighthearted romances. She also wished to have her fiction judged
separately from her already extensive and widely known work as
an editor and critic. An additional factor in her use of a pen name
may have been a desire to shield her private life from public
scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with
the married George Henry Lewes, with whom she lived for over 20
years.
Birthplace: Warwickshire (1819)
Parents: Robert and Christina Evans
Siblings: Christina, born in 1814; Isaac, born in 1816 and twin
brothers who survived only a few days into March 1821. Half
brother and half sister: Robert (1802) and Fanny (1805)

Education
Marry Anne was considered rather intelligent.
Ages 5-9: Miss Lathams school, Attleborough
Ages 9-13: Mrs. Wallingtons school, Nuneaton
Ages 13-16: Miss Franklins school, Coventry
After the age of 16 she started self-educating by being allowed
access to the library of Arbury Hall.

Moved To Coventry
Evans was 16 when her mother died, leaving her to take care of
her father and be a housekeeper. When she was 21 her brother
Isaac married taking over the family home. Evans moves to
Coventry with her father. There she meets Charles Bray who was
a wealthy man and became intimate friends with him. Also starts
questioning her religious faith. She travels to Switzerland with
Bray.

Moved to Landon (1850)

She moved to London with the intent of becoming a writer and
calling herself Marian Evans. She contributed essays and reviews
for the journal of the man whom she had stayed with while in
London, a certain John Chapman.
George Henry Lewes: Philosopher and critic met Evans in 1851
and by 1854 they had decided to live together. He was married to
Agnes Jervis with whom he had had 3 children. They travelled to
Germany for the purpose of research. Evans worked on translation
of theological texts. They considered themselves married and
everybody else considered them a scandal.
George Eliot: While writing for the journal Westminster Review
she started mocking the way women writers wrote at the time by
writing an essay naming it Silly Novels by Lady Novelists
(1856). Came up with the name George Eliot and decided to be a
novelist.
First and Last Publication:
She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859),
The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch

(187172), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in

provincial England and known for their realism and psychological
insight.
Last Years: George Lewes gets ill and dies in 1878. Evans finds
solace with John Walter Cross who is twenty years younger than
her. She later on married him and changed her name to Mary
Anne Cross. John tries to kill himself during their honeymoon but
survives. They return to England where Eliot gets a throat
infection which couples with kidney disease and leads her to
death in 1880 at the age of 61.
Facts: Even after her death they didnt let her have a memorial
stone in Westminster Abbeys Poets Corner. They allowed it one
hundred years after. Several people claimed to be George Eliot
before Mary Anne came out. It is said that after an affair with
Evans, famous British philosopher wrote an essay on repugnancy
of ugly women and all of Evans friends knew it was about her.