Mary Ann Evans, known better under her pen name of George Eliot, was born on November 22, 1819 in Warwickshire. Her family provided her with strong and severe religious training in her youth. Her father was an agent for a wealthy landowner, so she received an excellent education in private schools and from tutors (World Book, 6: 185). When she reached the age of seventeen, the death of her mother and marriage of her elder sister called her home from school to be her father's housekeeper. She completed her own education there, working at several languages and music. When Mary Ann was twenty-two she and her father moved to Coventry where she met Charles Bray. Bray had written many philosophical inquiries that challenged the beliefs of Christianity. It was said that the two were introduced so Mary Ann would convert the Brays to the ways of Christianity, but it instead worked the other way. Miss Evans instead became a freethinker and published her first literary work, Leben Jesu, and unorthodox version on the life of Jesus. After her father's death in 1849, she traveled throughout Europe and later settled in London. She met and fell in love with a married man, George Henry Lewes. Lewes, the philosopher and literary critic, had a wife living whom he could not divorce, but, defying the conventions of the time, Lewes and Miss Evans entered a relationship that was a marriage in all but law (Davenport).
             The two established a home together, and in the late 1850's, Eliot began to write fiction as a relaxation from more serious literary work. She hid her identity for many years, and even after admitting authorship she continued to use her pen name, for it was better known than her real name. Three successful novels were published before Silas Marner, which was written in 1861. Silas Marner, Adam Bede, Scenes from Clerical Life, and The Mill on the Floss were considered by critics to be her best work, as they all...