Apedia

George Mary Ann Pen English Middlemarch Wanted Eliot

Front George Eliot
Back Mary Ann Evanse
1819 80
Novelist critic and poet

Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian [citation needed]), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels, Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–63), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–72) and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of which are set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.


Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she wanted to escape the stereotype of women's writing being limited to lighthearted romances. She also wanted to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. Another factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny, thus avoiding the scandal that would have arisen because of her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes.

Eliot's Middlemarch has been described by the novelists Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.

Learn with these flashcards. Click next, previous, or up to navigate to more flashcards for this subject.

Next card: Eliot age t s romanticism intrested symbolism cultural

Previous card: Elene english poem cynewulf st helena's discovery cross

Up to card list: Wordsworth companion to literature by Bahman Moradi