ELIOT, George (the_pseudonym of MARY ANN or MARIAN EVANS CROSS), the most dis tinguished of English women novelists : b. Ar bury farm, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, 22 Nov. 1819; d. Chelsea, 22 Dec. 1880. Her father, Robert Evans, who was of Welsh extraction, was agent on the estates of Francis Newdegate; and the future nOvelist was the second daughter and third child of his second marriage. When Marion was a few months old, the family removed to Griff, a red-brick, ivy covered house,)) and there the first 21 years of her life were spent amid scenes and among a people that she was destined to im mortalize. Her first school was at Attleborough, and from there she went to a boarding school at Nuneaton, one of the governesses at which, Miss Lewis, became a warm friend, and suc ceeded in awakening religious impressions that were deepened in the years she spent between the ages of 13 and 16,' at Miss Franklin's school in Coventry. The death of her mother, to whom she .was tenderly devoted, which occurred in 1836, was succeeded soon after by the mar riage of her sister, and the care of her father's home then devolved upon her. The duties of the household were accompanied by lessons in Italian and German, Greek and Latin; she was already an omnivorous reader and one with a fine power of selection; she was passionately fond of music, and an excellent player on the piano on which instrument she might have at tained some distinction as an executant but for the "agonies of shyness° with which she was af flicted. Her father's retirement from active life was followed by her brother's appointment to succeed him, and Marian and her father re moved in 1841 to Toleshill Road, Coventry.
Up to this time Marian was deeply imbued with evangelical religion, which had been stamped upon a mind of singular receptivity by the example and instruction of her teachers. Then with expanding intellect came vanishing faith. Among the new friends was Charles Bray, whose wife was a sister of Charles Hen nell, the author of a work entitled 'An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity,' pub lished in 1838, and rationalistic in tone. The reading of this and similar works effected a complete revolution in the inner life of Marian Evans; she abandoned the creed of her girl hood, and determined in the spring of 1842 not to go to church. This was the occasion of a temporary breach' with _her father who was a churchman of the old sehool and little disposed to brook rebellion in his own household. After a short absence from home and through the efforts of friends a reconciliation was effected; Marian returned and resumed her attendance at church, and although she never retraced by a step the course she had taken, her works are witness to the insight and tenderness, born of understanding, with which she approached evangelical beliefs.
The years from 1842 to 1849 were devoted to attendance on her father during his recurrent illnesses, and 'by the translation of Strauss's (Life of Jesus, a work which entailed two years of exacting labor and was published anonymously in 1846, and for which she received the sum of f20. The completion of this work
left her °Strauss-sick—it makes her ill dis secting the beautiful story of the Crucifixion After the death of her father (1849) she went to the Continent and passed about eight months in Geneva. On her return she took up work on the Westminster Review, acting as sub editor, and in 1853 went to reside at the office of the magazine at 142 Strand. In the same year she published a translation of Feuerbach's 'Essence of Christianity,' the only work pub lished under her own name, and the leading idea in which is that man has made God in his own image— the spiritualized form of his hopes and desires. At this period she made the ac quaintance of Froude, J. S. Mill, Carlyle, Har riet Martineau, Herbert Spencer and George Henry Lewes (q.v.).
With Lewes, whom she describes as ea man of heart and conscience, wearing a mask of flippancy,° she entered into a connection which she regarded as a marriage without the sanc tion of law. He had a wife already, from whom he was separated under circumstances that pre cluded the possibility of divorce. This alliance is regarded by many as the one fatal step in her life, and to it they attribute the' somewhat obtrusive self-consciousness that is apparent in some parts of her writings, and note that the novelist's own conduct does not square with her teachings. There is no doubt however that they lived happily together, and that their union exercised a profound mutual influence on their literary life and fortunes. Lewes undertook all business matters for her, acted as critic and mentor; and tactfully shielded her from the perusal of unfavorable or inept reviews. In deed but for the constant encouragement and stimulus 'given by Lewes, the chances are that Marian Evans would never have discovered herself as a creative artist, for although possess ing singular robustness and health of intellect she was of low physical vitality, subject to acute fits of depression, and only by strong effort was able to undertake creative work., Lewes and Marian Evans left England in July 1854 and wintered in Germany. On their re turn she labored at a translation of Spinoza's and wrote reviews for the 1.eader. An article contributed to the Westminster Review entitled "Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming,° in which the famous preacher of Crown Court was subjected to a criticism that was at once informed, witty, pointed and scath ing, revealed to Lewes that he had mated with genius, and under his encouragement, 'The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton' was begun in September 1856, and appeared 'in Blackwood's Magazine in January 1857. This was followed by 'Mr. Gilfil's Love Story,' and 'Janet's Repentance,) the three stories being published in book form in 1858, under the pen name of 'George Eliot.) Discerning critics like Thackeray and Dickens recognized that a new force had arisen in England fiction, and the latter divined that the creator was a woman.