Biography of George Eliot

Telling the English province

22 November 1819
22 December 1880
George Eliot was the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, born on 22 November 1819 on a farm in Warwickshire, England. It is the youngest daughter of Robert Evans and his second wife Christiana Pearson Evans. Mary has two half brothers, Robert and Fanny, and two brothers, Crissey and Isaac. His father is a very loving man and is responsible for directing an estate of a local family, giving his family a good standard of living. Mary attended with family the Chilvers Coton Church and soon became a constant presence in the church library. This is the period when did your passion for literature, becoming a Devourer of books. His family ties stronger with the young brother Isaac; for the introverted and shy Mary will be very difficult to see it move away from home to attend school. His formal education began in 1824 and the governess of her school, Miss Maria Lewis, soon takes under his wing. The woman becomes his mentor and even after Mary left school the two engage in a lengthy correspondence.
The same school Mrs. Wallington's School in Nueneaton will play an important role in the novel "scenes of clerical life" (1858). In school he learned to play the seem, studying foreign languages and began writing short stories and poems. Is the student careful and serious to the point that, under the influence of his studies, begins to question his religious faith. After the death from cancer of his mother, which occurred in 1836, Mary returns home. Decides to take care of his father and the House, but she continued to study with a private teacher. In 1840 it appears his first story published by Cristhian Observer ". The big change in his life occurs when following his father, now retired, in Coventry. Until this moment Mary was tormented for his appearance, convincing themselves intimately to be devoted to a life of solitude and sprofondandosi in religious questions.
His reflections cause it to stop the church attendance, alienandole the love of the father and the brother. At the same time, however, his social life is enriched with new knowledge and open the doors of the intellectual circles of Coventry. Thus in contact with freethinkers as Cara and Charles Bray, and starts reading non-religious authors, including Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walter Scott. Meanwhile, his first public translation: "life of Jesus" (1846), followed by "essay on Christianity" by Feuerbach (1854). After his father died following a long illness, Mary travels with spouses Bray in Italy and Switzerland. The father left a small annuity and she decided to move to London, where he began working as a journalist under the pseudonym Marian Evans. He worked for the Publisher Chapman and his magazine "Westminster Review", which proves to be a valuable contributor, gaining ever greater editorial responsibility.
Mary especially appreciates her life as a single woman and mistress of your own destiny. Keeps the readings at the theater and becomes friends with important figures of the British cultural scene and beyond, as Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. But his life gets complicated when ends up falling victim to the charms of Chapman who is already married and has another lover to another. The sentimental turn comes at the end of 1852, when acquainted with George Henry Lewis, who lives a kind of open marriage. The man, however, leaves his wife and moved to live with Mary, who decides lucidly about not having children doesn't want that arise from two parents not legally married. Despite the ridicule of friends and relatives, the two live together considering themselves husband and wife until 1878, the year of the death of Lewis. The man is one of the biggest supporters of the literary career of Mary and encouraged her to write. Mary then chooses to write under the pen name George Eliot, both for the fame achieved by his adulterous affair for both publications already appeared on Rewiev.
The main reason that leads her to use a pseudonym is the desire that his reputation doesn't precede the text altering any value judgments. The first literary successes are the short story collections "Blackwood's Magazine" and "scenes of clerical life." His first novel "Adam Bede" was published in 1859 and gets an immediate success with the public. Follow: "the mill on the Floss" (1860); "Silas Mamer" (1861); "Romola (1863)," Felix Holt, the radical "(! 865); "Middlemarch" (1865), "the legend of Jubal" (1874) and "Daniel Deronda" (1876). After her husband's death, he retired to private life, allowing only the banker John Walter Cross to visit her. The man asks wife despite having over twenty years younger than her. The writer is initially reluctant, but then in May 1880 decides to marry him.
The wedding allows you also to reconcile with his brother Isaac after many years of mutual silence. The new sentimental bond begins but under the worst wishes: the new groom has an accident that no one knows whether or not voluntary. These falls from the balcony of the hotel when staying in Venice for honeymoon. The man is saved and the couple returned to London, but the marriage lasts short because Mary Anne Evans, aka George Eliot, died on 22 December 1880.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.