Who was George Eliot?

‘George Eliot’, Life and Career
‘George Eliot’ was the pen-name of Mary Anne, who later called herself Marian Evans. She was born at Chilvers Coton, near Nuneaton, in Warwickshire, on November 22, 1819. She was the daughter of Robert Evans and Christiana Evans, Robert’s second wife. Her father was at that time working as a land agent to a wealthy estate owner. He had gradually risen to his position through his honesty and hard work.

Mary Ann’s parents exercised a tremendous influence on her. Her mother was a woman of forceful and decisive nature and her father was affectionate, upright and very much fond of Mary Ann, who was his youngest child. Mary Ann was devoted to her brother, Isaac, with an allegiance which she herself later described as ‘puppy-like’.

Mary Ann had her schooling at day schools in the neighborhood before she was sent to residential schools at Nuneaton and Coventry. At the school in Nuneaton she came under the influence of an Evangelical governess, Miss Lewis, who was, for the next dozen years or so, Mary Ann’s close friend and confidante. She was responsible for inculcating a religious ardour in Mary Ann. This was further accentuated at the school in Coventry. She dressed very severely and led a life of piety and austerity. She acquired knowledge of French and Italian at this school.

Her mother’s death forced Mary Ann to return home and keep house for her father. However, her informal education continued. She had lessons in Latin and German. In her later life, she taught herself mathematics, the sciences, Greek and even a little Hebrew. She was not only the most well-read woman of her times, but also one of the most widely read of all the English writers. One of Mary Ann’s letters enables us to know something about the range of her reading “My mind presents an assemblage of disjointed specimens of history, ancient and modern, scraps of poetry picked up from Shakespeare, Cowper, Wordsworth and Milton, newspaper topics, morsels of Addison and Bacon, Latin verbs, geometry, entomology and chemistry, reviews and metaphysics, all arrested and smothered by the fast thickening everyday accession of actual events, relative anxieties and household cares and vexations”.

After the marriage of her sister, Chrissie, Mary Ann had complete charge of the household. The narrow round of domestic routine, broken only by charitable visits to the cottage of the poor was intensely cramping for the sensitive girl, and the heroine in George Eliot’s last novel eloquently voices the frustration of the future author at this stage of her life. “You may try but you cannot imagine what it is to have a man’s force of genius in you yet to suffer the slavery of being a girl”.

After the marriage of Isaac, the family, that is Robert Evans and Mary Ann, moved to Coventry. This happened in 1841. The new friendships she formed at Coventry had a far-reaching influence on her life, especially on her intellectual outlook and religious beliefs. The most important influence was that of Charles Bray (1811-84), a wealthy ribbon manufacturer. Bray was a self-taught freethinker who campaigned for several progressive and liberal schemes, including secularization of education, legalization of trade unions and further extension of the right to vote. Next in importance was the influence of his wife, who had been nurtured in an earnest Unitarian family; of Mrs. Bray’s sister, Sara, Hannell, who was deeply interested in several theological and philosophical speculations of which last named was the author of An Enquiry Concerning the Origins of Christianity (1838), a book which fundamentally changed Mary Ann’s religious beliefs, shattering her orthodoxy against which her mind seems to have been already at work for quite some time. It had disturbed Mary Ann to find in the novels of Sir Walter Scott, her favourite writer, that orthodox Christians had by no means the monopoly of goodness, and that Roman Catholics and Non-Conformists had often led lives of great virtue and piety. She read deeply in literature concerning the Bible, pondering earnestly over the question of its historical authenticity and validity. A visible result of this entire inner struggle was the rupture with her father when she told him, in 1842, that her intellectual doubts prevented her going to church. Relation between the two were at the breaking-point for sometime, but eventually peace was restored, with Mary Ann permitted to cherish what beliefs she liked, as conformed to the outward observances of orthodox Christianity. She continued to live with her father, whom she dearly loved in spite of the difference in belief, until his death in 1849. She had already been apprehending this event with dread, for Robert Evan’s health had been declining rapidly for some time. She had recorded her fears in her journal: “What shall I do without my father? It will seem as if a part of my moral nature is gone.”

Mary Ann (Who now preferred being called Marian) spent the winter of 1849-50 at Geneva in Switzerland. She had accompanied the Brays on their Continental tour but preferred to stay on in Switzerland. She spent most of her time in reading. She formed a lasting friendship with Francais d’ Albert Durade, an artist in whose house she stayed at Geneva. He not only painted one of the most beautiful of her portraits, but was to translate several of her novels into French, as well as to figure, in a greatly altered form, as a character in one of her novels. On her return from Switzerland she stayed again with the Brays. One of the questions which now engaged her mind was that of making the best of the income of ? 100 a year which her father had left her.

Marians Evans had already had some experience of serious and critical writing. Miss Brabant, one of her friends, had been working on translating Strauss’s controversial book on the life of Jesus. When in 1843 she got married, the work of translation devolved on Marin Evans. This was a very exacting task and Marian Evans discharged it with her customary earnestness and integrity. The work was published anonymously in 1846, as the three-volume The Life of Jesus Critically Examined. The publisher of the journal The Westminster Review printed her translation. She decided now to settle in London, lodging with the Chapmans and working as a serious journalist. However, there was soon trouble at Chapman’s because Mrs. Chapman and their children’s governess, who was also Chapman’s mistress, joined hand to oust this newcomer, whom they considered a challenge to their security. The immediate result of this was Marian’s return to Coventry after only a couple of month’s stay in London. Some months after this, Chapman bought The Westminster Review.

By now Marian had got over her humiliation and also realized how she had unwittingly given offence to Chapman’s two women. She returned to London and for the next three years worked as the assurance editor of Chapman’s magazine. The Westminster Review saw some of its best days under her charge. The position also enabled her to meet some of the most eminent intellectuals of the day which included J.S Mill and Herbert Spencer. In fact, her contact with the philosopher became so close that there were strong expectations of marriage between the two but these expectations did not come true.

It was Herbert Spencer who introduced Marian Evans to George Henry Lewes. Lewes was married to Agnes Jervis and had four sons by her. However Mrs. Lewes had a love relationship with Hunt which was not resented by Lewes, who was a man of liberal views, However when his wife bore another son to Hunt, Lewes ceased to look upon her as his wife. Nevertheless, since he had countenanced her earlier adultery, under the law he was not in a position to divorce her. Lewes was passing through a period of wretchedness when he met Marian for the first time. They spent a lot of time together, socially as well as in connection with their professional work about which they consulted each other. Lewes then did considerable reviewing work for The Leader. Marian satisfied her-self that Agnes (who then lived with Hunt) was not at all inclined to return to her legal husband and decided to live with Lewes in an unwedded union. Lewes had been ailing for a long time and was, in 1854, advised a change of climate. Marian decided to accompany him to Germany. It was then that their relationship became known to society. All evidence points to the fact that the relations between Marian and Lewes remained extremely affectionate to the end of his days. We learn from Marian’s letters that she resented being called Miss Evans and expected her friends to refer to her as Ms. Lewes. She looked upon the tie as a sacred one and made this clear to all her friends. She even wrote to one of them: ‘If there is any one relation of my life which is and has been profoundly serious, it is my relation to Mr. Lewes. Light and easily broken ties are what I neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically. Women who are satisfied with such ties do not act as I have done. They obtain what they desire and are still invited to dinner.

Marin continued writing for The Westminster Review at Weimer and Berlin where they stayed for a considerable time. She translated the Ethics of Spinoza, while Lewes wrote his valuable biography of Goethe. The union with Lewes had important social repercussions for Marian, the most serious of which was her estrangement from her brother Isaac. This deeply hurt Marian, who never felt at ease till contact with her brother was re-established when she married Cross, after Lewes’s death.

Marian Evans’ capacity for writing fiction had first been discerned by Herbert Spencer who tried, though in vain, to persuade her to write a novel. Marian now wrote a story based on an episode that she remembered from her childhood and showed it to Lewes when only a part of it had been written. Lewes’s reaction to it was enthusiastically favourable. She completed the story towards the end of 1856 and Lewes used his influence to have it published in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, where it appeared as The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton. At about this time Marian adopted the pen-name ‘George Eliot’. The first part of the name was chosen because it was the same as Lewes’ Christian name, and the second, as she herself wrote, because it was “a good, mouth-filling, eating pronounced word.” Amos Barton, which was a tremendous success, was followed by Mr. Gilfil’s Love-Story and Janet’s Repentance, both of which were also published in the same magazine. The three long stories were later re-published in book form, under the title Scenes of Clerical Life. The book was a sensational success and its admirers included Dickens and Thackeray.
George Eliot’s first novel was Adam Bede, which was published in 1859. This established her as a new force in English fiction, on level with the two reigning stalwarts, Dickens and Thackeray. This was followed by The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862-63), Felix Holt (1860), Middlemarch (1871-72) and Daniel Deronda (1876). She also wrote miscellaneous essays, some poetry, much of which was at first only privately circulated, and a poetic drama, Title Spanish Gypsy (1868). A collection of her essays appeared under the title Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879).

Last days
George Elliot’s creative work not only brought her immense recognition but also considerable money. In 1863, she and Lewes were able to buy an impressive house situated at North Bank, Regent’s Park. It was named the Priory. It became famous for its Sunday afternoon gatherings which were attended some time or the other by almost every Victorian intellectual, as well as by most visiting artist and intellectuals from America and the Continent.

Lewes’s constant illness had been taking its gradual toll and he passed away on November 30, 1878. His death had a crippling effect on Marian, who did not produce a single line of creative writing after this. For months she did not see anyone and devoted all her time to the publication of the last volume of Lewes’s Problems of Life and Mind. Perhaps the first person she consented to see was a friend of the family, John Walter Cross, a banker by profession, who also had suffered a recent bereavement. Common suffering and the need for sympathy brought the two into a very close relationship, which culminated in their marriage on May 6, 1880. Cross was more than 21 years junior to George Eliot. The lawful marriage brought her a letter, the first after more than 20 years, from her brother Isaac. George Eliot breathed her last on December 22, 1880. Cross reconstructed her life from her letter which appeared in 1885 as George Eliot’s Life as Related in Her Letters and Journals.

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