Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life

About the Author

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans (later Marian Evans), was one of the preeminent English novelists of the Victorian era whose psychological insight, intellectual depth, and moral seriousness elevated the form of the novel to new heights. Born on November 22, 1819, in Warwickshire, England, to a land agent and his second wife, Evans received an education unusual for girls of her time, attending several schools that fostered her voracious intellectual appetite. After her mother's death and her father's retirement, she managed their household until his death in 1849, after which she moved to London to pursue a career in letters. In London, Evans worked as an assistant editor for the Westminster Review, becoming part of a progressive intellectual circle that included philosophers, critics, and scientists. During this period, she began a relationship with George Henry Lewes, a philosopher and literary critic who was married but separated from his wife. As divorce was largely unavailable in Victorian England, their open cohabitation from 1854 until Lewes's death in 1878 scandalized society but provided Evans with a supportive intellectual partnership crucial to her development as a novelist. Lewes encouraged Evans to turn from translation and criticism to fiction, and she adopted the masculine pseudonym 'George Eliot'—partly to ensure her work would be taken seriously and partly to distance her fiction from the 'silly novels by lady novelists' she had criticized in her essays. Beginning with 'Scenes of Clerical Life' (1857) and 'Adam Bede' (1859), Eliot quickly established herself as a novelist of remarkable psychological depth and moral seriousness. Her subsequent works, including 'The Mill on the Floss' (1860), 'Silas Marner' (1861), 'Romola' (1863), 'Felix Holt, the Radical' (1866), 'Middlemarch' (1871-72), and 'Daniel Deronda' (1876), demonstrated her growing mastery of complex narrative structures and her penetrating exploration of moral and social questions. Eliot's fiction is distinguished by its sympathetic portrayal of ordinary life, its psychological realism, and its exploration of the consequences of moral choices. She expanded the scope of the English novel beyond romance and sensation to encompass serious ethical themes and social analysis. Her narrative technique, which combines omniscient commentary with intense psychological portraiture, allows readers to both understand and judge her characters, creating a distinctive balance of sympathy and moral evaluation. After Lewes's death, Eliot shocked her friends by marrying John Cross, a man twenty years her junior, in May 1880. She died on December 22, 1880, at the age of 61, leaving a legacy as not only one of the greatest novelists in the English language but also as a woman who defied convention to live according to her own principles. Though initially controversial for her unconventional personal life, Eliot ultimately achieved both critical acclaim and popular success, her works recognized for their intellectual power, moral vision, and profound humanity. Her masterpiece 'Middlemarch,' particularly, continues to be regarded by many critics as the greatest English novel ever written.