Eliot, George ___ 1819-1880 ___ British ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Mary Ann Evans was born at Arbury, Warwickshire, the daughter of a land agent to the Earl of Lonsdale. As a child she was an avid reader. Her mother died when she was still a teenager, and when her father retired in 1841, she went with him to live in Coventry, and kept house. There, she joined a group of intellectuals, including Charles Bray, who were studying the Bible, and became more sceptical about Anglicanism. Her first literary work, 'Life of Jesus', a translation from German, was published in 1846. After her father's death in 1849, she travelled on the Continent with the Brays, and moved to London, where she worked as a subeditor for the 'Westminster Review'. In 1854, she started a relationship with George Henry Lewes, who was still married but separated from his wife. They lived together which caused a social scandal, and travelled abroad on various occasions. Lewes encouraged her to write, and, in 1856, she began publishing 'Scenes of Clerical Life' in 'Blackwood's Magazine' under the pseudonym George Eliot. By 1861, she had published three of her most famous novels: 'Adam Bede', 'The Mill on the Floss' and 'Silas Marner', although it was to be another ten years before she finished 'Middlemarch'. After Lewes died in 1878, Eliot married John Walter Cross, who, later, published a biography of her life based largely on letters and journals.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - St Ogg's on the Floss

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1855-1877 ___ domestic literary travel music health

WEB TEXT LINKS
some references
a few pages
etext

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Yale University Libraries - Beinecke Library
New York Public Library: Manuscripts and Archives Division - 1879

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
George Eliot's Life as Related in her Letters and Journals
The Journals of George Eliot
 

May 2005, June 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.