Eliot, George.

Variant names
Dates:
Birth 1819-11-22
Death 1880-12-22
Britons
English, German

Biographical notes:

George Eliot, pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, was a British novelist and common-law wife of George Henry Lewes.

From the description of George Eliot letters and portrait, 1867-1881. (Pennsylvania State University Libraries). WorldCat record id: 37104968

English author, born Mary Ann Evans.

From the description of George Eliot Papers, 1854-1880. (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC); University of Texas at Austin). WorldCat record id: 191957088

George Eliot was a British novelist, poet and essayist. Born Mary Ann Evans on November 22, 1819 she published her first poem in the Christian Observer in January 1840. She first used the pseudonym "George Eliot" for the second installment of "Amos Barton" in Blackwood's Magazine, in 1858.

From the description of George Eliot collection of papers, 1841-1899 bulk (1841-1879). (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 122682511

English novelist.

From the description of Letters to George Eliot [manuscript], 1865-1878. (University of Virginia). WorldCat record id: 647820199

From the description of Letter / Mrs. G.H. Lewes, 1872. (Ohio University). WorldCat record id: 12986827

George Eliot (pseudonym of Marian Evans), English novelist.

From the guide to the George Eliot manuscript material : 7 items, 1862-ca. 1875, (The New York Public Library. Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle.)

Lydia Maria Child, born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1802, published on numerous subjects, including domestic advice, children's literature, abolition and religion, and was an active abolitionist in New York and Massachusetts. She died in 1880.

From the guide to the The collected correspondence of Lydia Maria Child, 1817-1880 (inclusive), [microform]., 1817-1880, (American Philosophical Society)

George Eliot was a British novelist, poet and essayist, born Mary Ann Evans on November 22, 1819. She first used the pseudonym "George Eliot" for the second installment of "Amos Barton" in Blackwood's Magazine, in 1858.

From the guide to the George Eliot collection of papers, 1841-1899, 1841-1879, (The New York Public Library. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature.)

English novelist, born Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans. For much of her life she used the surname of G.H. Lewes, with whom she lived from 1854 until his death in 1878. Shortly before her death she married J.W. Cross.

From the description of ALS : Regent's Park, to Emanuel Deutsch, [ca. 1870]. (Rosenbach Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122525224

George Eliot, pseudonym of Marian Evans, English Victorian novelist known for her Middlemarch, and Silas Marner.

From the description of George Eliot manuscript material : 7 items, 1862-ca. 1875 (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 183441747

Born Mary Ann Evans in 1819, George Eliot was the daughter of a land agent who managed estates in the rural midlands, a formative experience that gave her an insight into country society that later greatly influenced and enriched her first works of fiction. At different times of her life, she also spelled her name as Mary Anne, Marian, and Marianne, adopting the pen-name of Eliot only after her first work of fiction was published in 1857.

Eliot was brought up in a narrow religious tradition, and at school she became a convert to Evangelicalism. Charles Bray, a free thinking manufacturer, influenced her skepticism of orthodox beliefs, although she never strayed from the ethical teachings of her childhood religion. Her works contain themes of love and duty, and affectionate portraits of clergymen and dissenters. She began her literary career with translations from the German of two works of religious speculation, of which Strauss’s Life of Jesus was published in 1846 without her name.

In 1849, after the death of her father, she moved to London and quickly became involved in literary circles. In 1851 John Chapman made her the assistant editor of the Westminster Review although she had been contributing articles and reviews to the periodical for only a year. It was through Chapman’s influence that she met G. H. Lewes, who was then separated from his wife. She began living with him without a legal union in 1854, an arrangement that caused her some anxiety and strife with friends and family, but one that ultimately proved both long lasting and beneficial to her literary career. Only after meeting him did she begin writing works of fiction, and Lewes remained a strong supporter of her work until his death in 1878.

The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, one of three stories brought together in Scenes of Clerical Life (1858), appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1857 under the name of George Eliot, the first work that bore this pseudonym. These stories were praised for domestic realism, pathos, and humor, and caused speculation about the identity of George Eliot, who many believed was a clergyman or a clergyman’s wife. Scenes marked the beginning as well of a long relationship with Blackwood Press, which would publish all of her works save Romola .

Begun in 1858, Adam Bede (1859) established her as a leading English novelist, praised by readers as diverse as James H. Turgenev and Queen Victoria. Following Bede were a series of novels, including The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862-3), Felix Holt, (1866), Middlemarch (1871-2), and Daniel Deronda (1876). Until Romola, a historical novel about society in Florence, Italy, her novels had concerned country life. In 1879, a collection of her most successful Westminster Review essays, entitled The Impressions of Theophrastrus Such, was published. In 1880, she married John Walter Cross, her financial advisor and friend who was twenty years younger than she. Eliot died seven months later.

From the guide to the George Eliot Collection TXRC05-A10004., 1854-1880, (The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center)

Eliot was a British novelist.

Edith Harriet Kittermaster was the daughter of James Kittermaster, a retired British Army officer and M.D.

From the description of [Letter, 1841 Oct. 14?, to] Miss Kittermaster / Mary Ann Evans. (Smith College). WorldCat record id: 214281110

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Subjects:

  • Slavery
  • Authors
  • Authors, English
  • Authors, English
  • Children's literature
  • Ciegos
  • English literature
  • English literature 19th century History and criticism
  • Fiction
  • Free verse
  • Letters
  • Letters
  • Novelists, English
  • Novelists, English
  • Poems
  • Poetics
  • Women
  • Women and literature
  • Women authors, English
  • Women authors, English
  • Women novelists, English
  • Women novelists, English
  • Authors, English
  • Letters
  • Novelists, English
  • Women authors, English
  • Women novelists, English

Occupations:

  • Abolitionists

Places:

  • Florence (Italy) (as recorded)
  • England (as recorded)

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