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Mary Ann Evans, known by the pen name George Eliot ( 22 November 1819 - 22 December 1880), was an English novelist. Born on a farm near Nuneaton in Warwickshire, she wrote about life in country towns in many of her novels. She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure that her works were taken seriously. Female authors published freely under their own names, but Eliot wanted to ensure that she was not seen as a writer of romances. An additional factor may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with George Lewes.
Mary Ann Evans was the daughter of an estate agent in Warwickshire. She was brought up with a narrowly low church religion. Charles Bray, a Coventry manufacturer, brought her into contact with more liberal theologies. She translated Strauss's Life of Jesus ( 1846) and began contributing to the Westminster Review in 1850 and became its assistant editor in 1851. The Westminster Review had been founded by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham and was the leading journal for philosophical radicals. In 1854, she published a translation of Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, and it was at that time that she began to live with George Henry LewesGeorge Henry Lewes ( April 18, 1817 November 28, 1878) was a British philosopher and literary critic. He was born in London, a grandson of Charles Lee Lewes, the actor. He was educated in London, Jersey, Brittany, and finally at Dr Charles Burney's school in an extramarital cohabitation.
In 1857Events January 9 Earthquake at Fort Tejon, California with an estimated magnitude of 7. 9 February 16 The National Deaf Mute College (later renamed Gallaudet University) is established in Washington, DC becoming the first school for the advanced education, she published "Amos Barton," the first of the "Scenes of Clerical Life" in Blackwood's Magazine . The collected "Scenes" were well received and launched Evans on a novelistic career. Evans's cohabitation with Lewes was a scandalous matter. Lewes's wife refused to be divorced, and so he remained married to her in name only, while he made house solely with Evans.
Two years after the death of Lewes, on May 6May 6 is the 126th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (127th in leap years). There are 239 days remaining. Events 1527 Spanish and German troops sack Rome; some consider this the end of the Renaissance. 1682 Louis XIV of France moves his court to V, 1880 she married a friend, John Cross , an AmericanThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in banker, who was 20 years her junior. They honeymooned in VeniceVenice ( Italian Venezia German Venedig , the city of canals, is the capital of the region of Veneto, population 271,073 (2001). The city stretches across numerous small islands in a marshy lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in northeast Italy. The saltwater l and, allegedly, Cross jumped from their hotel balcony into the Grand Canal on their wedding night; he survived. She died at the age of 61 in London of a kidneyThe kidneys are bean-shaped excretory organs in vertebrates. Part of the urinary system, the kidneys filter wastes (especially urea) from the blood and excrete them, along with water, as urine. The medical field that studies the kidneys and diseases affec ailment and was interred in Highgate Cemetery (East), Highgate, London, England.
Friend and author Henry James once wrote of her:
She had a low forehead, a dull grey eye, a vast pendulous nose, a huge mouth full of uneven teeth and a chine and jawbone qui n'en finissent pas... Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes steals forth and charms the mind, so that you end, as I ended, in falling in love with her. Yes behold me in love with this great horse-faced bluestocking.