1819–1880 · Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England · also known as Mary Ann Evans, Marian Evans
George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, who chose a man’s name so her novels would be taken seriously. A brilliant translator and journalist before she turned to fiction, she wrote some of the most intelligent and humane novels in English: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), the short and moving Silas Marner (1861), and Middlemarch (1871–72), a portrait of a whole provincial town that Virginia Woolf called “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.”
Begin with Silas Marner.
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George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, who chose a man’s name so her novels would be taken seriously. A brilliant translator and journalist before she turned to fiction, she wrote some of the most intelligent and humane novels in English: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), the short and moving Silas Marner (1861), and Middlemarch (1871–72), a portrait of a whole provincial town that Virginia Woolf called “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.”
Middlemarch is usually considered George Eliot’s best-known work, followed by Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede.
Most readers start with Silas Marner.
Both refer to the same writer. Other spellings and names include Mary Ann Evans, Marian Evans.
Yes — 1 of George Eliot’s books are free to read online in Pagine, the free e-reader and reading tracker.