Born: 22 November 1819, United Kingdom
Died: 22 December 1880
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Mary Ann Evans, Mary Ann Cross
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
George Eliot, the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, foremost of English women novelists. Her father was a carpenter and builder in Derbyshire, in the heart of that stolid farming life of the English midlands which she was later to mirror back so faithfully. The details of the author’s early years, her companionships , her physical surroundings and mental growth, might easily be filled in from her writings, since few novelists have drawn so freely from their own personal and intimate experiences, and there can be no doubt that George Eliot’s own personality is set forth in the character of Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss. Like Maggie, too, she was not a precocious child, preferring play to study, and with difficulty learning to read.
After some years passed at a school in Coventry, her thirst for knowledge awakened, and she studied among other subjects, German, Italian, Greek and Latin, though assiduously and unsystematically that at the age of nineteen she could describe her mind as “an assemblage of disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern, scraps of poetry picked up from Shakespeare, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Milton, morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology and chemistry.”
Her first literary work was a translation of Strauss’s Life of Jesus, published in 1846, without attaining much success, after which she became assistant editor of the Westminster Review, and wrote several notable papers. She now became acquainted with many distinguished authors of that period – among them Henry Lewes. Her friendship with the last-named led to a closer relationship which she regarded as a marriage, though a legal marriage was impossible, since Lewes already had a wife living, from whom he was separated under circumstances that precluded the possibility of divorce. that both Miss Evans and Lewes regarded their union as possessed of all of the solemn force of a lifelong tie there can be no doubt. Equally certain is it that whatever fame George Eliot achieved as a novelist, she owed to the encouragement and unswerving faith of Lewes, and it is more than likely that without the stimulus of his belief in her powers her novels would never have been written.
Her first essay in fiction, The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, appeared in Blackwoods Magazine in 1857. and was followed by Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story and Janet’s Repentance, but her fame was not established until 1859 when Adam Bede met with a success (in her own words) “triumphantly beyond anything she had dreamed of.”
Then more followed in rapid succession, The Mill on Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt and Middlemarch. In 1876 her last novel, Daniel Dronda appeared, and in 1878 the death of Mr. Lewes seems also to have been the death-blow to her artistic vitality, and beyond a few essays, she wrote no more.
In estimating her literary genius, Mrs. Craigie (“John Oliver Hobbes”) says:
“Thackeray is brilliant; Tolstoi is vivid to a point where life-likeness overwhelms any consideration of art; Balzac create a whole world; George Eliot did not create, but her exposition of the upper and middle class minds of her day is a masterpiece of scientific psychology.”
From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
George Eliot (Marian Evans), The Greatest English Woman Novelist, 1819 – 1880 A.D.
One comes to the consideration of this woman of genius with a feeling akin to sadness. There is a struggle between respect for her ability and contempt for her conduct.
Marian Evans was born of humble parents, who were, nevertheless, of sterling worth and who sought for their daughter educational advantages of which they had been deprived. They were religious people and sent Marian to a school kept by the Misses Franklin, who were devout Methodists. She was early engaged in Sunday school and other religious work.
Under more advanced teachers she studied Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and German; she also became a pianist of much skill.
Her abilities brought her into acquaintance with many eminent people, among them several of liberal, rationalistic, and even atheistic views, “clever thinkers,” learned doubters, dreamy theorists, but arrogant, discontented, and defiant.
Mr. Lewes was one of this number. To him she became attached and, although he had a wife living, Marian Evans lived with him for twenty years. They were both people of genius and their tastes were congenial, but these things can never excuse the disregard and defiance of God’s laws.
After the death of Mr. Lewes, she, being fifty-nine years old, married Mr. John Walter Cross, who was much younger than herself.
We may sometimes wish we had never known the private life of Marian Evans, but it is best that we should know. No doubt she is one of the greatest authors of this great literary century.
Her chief works are Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holl, Middlemarch, Daniel Dermonda, and Theophrastus Such.
George Eliot is an artist in delineating character in its development. Too often it is in a downward development; illicit love is found in nearly all her works and young people will hardly be profited by reading them.
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Born November, 1819, at Arbury Farm in the Parish of Chilvers Boton, Warwickshire. Her father, Robert Evans (the son of a builder and carpenter in Derbyshire) became agent of Francis Newdigate for estates in Derbyshire and Warwickshire. Robert Evans, a man of great physical strength and distinguished for his integrity and skill in his business, is partly portrayed in the Adam Bede and Caleb Garth novels of his daughter. His second wife gave some hints for Mrs. Poyser in Adam Bede. The early part of the Mill on the Floss is in substance auto- biographical, although the author was anxious to avoid too close adherence to facts. She aimed at transfiguration rather than reproduction. Mary Ann was not precocious as a child, preferring play to reading, but her development was certainly not slow. When five years old she was sent with her sister to a boarding school at Attleborough, Warwickshire, whence in her ninth year they were transferred to a large school kept by Miss Wallington at Nuneaton.
Miss Lewis, the principal governess, became her intimate friend and corresponded with her for years. Mary Ann now developed a passion for reading. Miss Lewis helped to influence the child’s growing religious feeling in the direction of evangelicalism. In 1832 Mary Ann was sent to Miss Franklin’s school at Coventry, where her musical gifts were strongly shown, though a display of them was restricted by agonies of shyness. She left school finally in 1835 and her mother died in the summer of 1836. Mary Ann then took charge of her father’s household and became an accomplished manager. She spent much time in organizing clothing clubs and other charitable works. Mary Ann had learned Italian and German, and could read Latin and Greek. In 1843 Miss Brabant, a friend of Mary Ann’s, handed over to her the translating of Strauss’ Life of Jesus. The task was very laborious and though not strong Mary Ann completed the work and the translation was published in June, 1846. During the next few years she was much occupied with attendance upon her father, whose health was failing, and after his death, in 1849, she inherited the small income. She visited the Continent and stayed for a short time with some friends at Geneva, after which she made her home with the Brays in England. In 1851 she went to board with the Chapmans in the Strand, London, where she acted (until 1853) as Assistant Editor of the “Westminster Review.” She formed an alliance with George Henry Lewes, editor of the “Leader,” a man of extraordinary versatility and acuteness, a most brilliant talker, who undertook all business matters with publishers, etc., for Mary Ann. In 1857 wrote Adam Bede, in 1858 the collected series of Scenes of Clerical Life appeared. In some respects this latter was never surpassed by the author. The first volume of The Mill on the Floss was finished in 1859 and the third in March, 1860. It appeared in April of that year, and six thousand copies were sold by the end of May. Silas Marner appeared in 1861; this has often been regarded as her most perfect composition. Mary Ann’s Sunday receptions were the only occasions on which she was ever seen except by those who belonged to her most intimate circle. She shrank from crowds and display. Her book Romola was published in 1862, and Middlemarch in 1871.
Her last novel Daniel Deronda was published in 1876. Lewes died in 1878 and for many weeks Mary Ann saw no one and neither read nor wrote letters. Later she occupied herself in preparing Lewes’ unfinished writings for the press and founded in his memory the George Henry Lewes Studentship. In 1867 Mr. Herbert Spencer had introduced Lewes to Mrs. Cross and her family, and later Mary Ann met Mrs. Cross and her son (who was a banker in New York) at Rome. A marriage with Mr. Cross was arranged in April, 1880, and after travelling on the continent they returned to live in Chelsea. Mary Ann caught a chill at a concert and her powers rapidly failed. She died in December, 1880. In estimating her literary genius, Mrs. Craigie says : “George Eliot’s exposition of the upper and middle class minds of her day is a masterpiece of scientific psychology.”