George Eliot
1819–1880
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George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, a woman of formidable intellect who believed female authors would be taken more seriously under a male name. She was already a respected magazine editor and translator of German philosophy when she began writing fiction in her late thirties — and almost immediately produced masterpieces.
Her great works — Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861) and above all Middlemarch (serialized 1871–72) — brought moral philosophy into the novel. Middlemarch, set in a provincial town in the 1830s, follows Dorothea Brooke's disastrous marriage and the idealist doctor Tertius Lydgate, mapping an entire society's web of motives and consequences in prose Virginia Woolf called one of the few English novels written for grown-ups.
In her private life she defied convention: she lived openly for 24 years with the married writer George Henry Lewes, an arrangement that scandalized polite society but gave her emotional freedom. In a 2015 BBC Culture poll of 82 critics from around the world, Middlemarch was voted the greatest British novel of all time.
Frequently asked
What was George Eliot's real name?
Mary Ann Evans. She wrote under the male pen name George Eliot, believing female authors would be taken more seriously, and she was already a respected magazine editor and translator of German philosophy when she began writing fiction.
What is George Eliot's most famous novel?
Middlemarch, serialized in eight parts in 1871–72. In a 2015 BBC Culture poll of 82 critics from around the world it was voted the greatest British novel of all time; Virginia Woolf called it one of the few English novels written for grown-ups.
Who was George Eliot's partner?
She lived openly for 24 years with the married writer George Henry Lewes, an arrangement that scandalized polite society but gave her emotional freedom. She married John Cross in 1880, months before her death.
Why it matters today
Middlemarch remains the benchmark for the serious social novel — its intricate web of motives, money and marriage is the template for everything from contemporary literary realism to prestige television's multi-character storytelling.
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