George Eliot Is a Woman

George Eliot is a well-known British author. What some may find most interesting about George is that he was actually a woman! Back in 1857 women were not able to write and publish novels so she used the alias name George Eliot to fulfill her childhood dream

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Mary Anne Evans was born at South Farm, Arbury, on November 22, 1819. She was the youngest of five children that her parents, Robert and Christiana, had. In 1824, Mary Anne was sent to Miss Latham’s boarding school, where she turned to books as a source of amusement. Back then people found Mary to be a serious and sensitive child. In 1828, Mary Anne was sent to Mrs. Wallington’s Boarding School at Nuneaton. This is where she met the most influential figure of her life, Maria Lewis. Miss Lewis took interest in the shy Mary and took it upon herself to nurture her. At Miss Wallington’s Mary became and accomplished pianist, studied French, and had much skill in writing. Although things were looking swell in Mary’s life, death soon struck her family. Christiana Evans passed away February of 1839, and Mary Anne took it upon herself to leave school and take care of her father (Virginia 1-2).

Mary Anne ended up marrying an unattractive man with an outgoing personality and charming wit. His name was George Henry Lewes and they ended up traveling the continent. In 1856, the couple decided to settle in Tenby on the coast of South Whales. Mary Anne began reminiscing about her childhood dream of writing fiction. Her husband encouraged her to try so the Lewes moved back to London and on September 23, 1856, Mary Anne began to write “The sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” which would later become a part of Scenes of Clerical Life. Her husband sent her story to a publisher and claimed it was a work done by a male friend that wished to be kept anonymous. The story was published on New Year’s Day, 1857. She then adopted the name George Eliot because “George was Mr. Lewes’s Christian name, and Eliot was a good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word” (Virginia 6).

Mary Anne was 40 when she became suddenly ill. She was diagnosed with having laryngitis, and the doctor saw no cause for her to worry. A few days later he kidney problem began to bother her again, and she was in much pain. She passed away at ten o’clock, the night of December 22, 1880. Mary Anne was buried in Highgate Cemetery, London (Virginia 9)

Silas Marner is a British novel of a weaver who lives in an English countryside village in the early nineteenth century. He is an outsider in his village because people don’t understand him and the fact that he has come from elsewhere does not help. The village sees Silas especially strange because he has these cataleptic fits that cause him to blank out and stand frozen for hours on end. He lives alone in a cottage with his loom and practically weaves