In 1851, following the death of her father and the subsequent inheritance of enough money to encourage her to live independently from her family, Mary Anne moved to London to pursue a career in journalism. These translations lead to Eliot's atheism and her eventual renunciation of the Christian faith. But my eyes at least have kept their early affectionate joy in our native landscape, which is one deep root of our national life and language'.įormidably intelligent and knowledgeable across a range of subjects: Mary Anne was able to speak several languages including German, Hebrew, and Greek, she translated two books into English that were central to the rejection of Christianity by the intellectual avant-garde: David Friedrich Strauss' Life of Jesus (1846) and Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1854). 'Our vision, both real and ideal, has since then been filled with far other scenes: among eternal snows and stupendous sun-scorched monuments of departed empires within the scent of the long orange-groves and where the temple of Neptune looks out over the siren-haunted sea. She alludes to the influence of her rural upbringing, which appears to still resonate within her educated and experienced adult mind: In her semi-autobiographical sketch, 'Looking backward' from Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879) Eliot describes her native county as 'fat central England'.

A clever and studious pupil, she was allowed to browse in the grand library at Arbury Hall, and in doing so, noticed the disparity between the luxurious life of the family and the tenants living and working on their estate. Unlike Charlotte Brontë's pen name Currer Bell, which has fallen into disuse, the name George Eliot is still employed today to identify one of the most influential novelists of the Victorian era.īorn Mary Anne Evans on 22nd November 1819 to the second wife of Robert Evans, estate manager for the Newdigate family of Arbury Hall in Warwickshire, Mary Anne spent much of her young life in this rural part of England, a childhood which clearly influenced her 1860 novel The Mill on the Floss. The name George Eliot was used to publish all of her fictional work and ensured that Eliot's novels were taken seriously.

Eliot assured Blackwood - who was at that time unaware of her true identity - that the pen name was necessary to employ 'as a tub to throw to the whale in case of curious enquiries'. The male name was created partly to conceal the gender of the author, and partly to disguise her irregular social position, living as an unmarried woman with a married man.

In a letter to her publisher William Blackwood, Evans suggested that the name George Eliot should be assigned to her work in place of her own.

George Eliot is the pseudonym created in 1857 by the aspiring writer Marian Evans.

1859 novel by george eliot