You are here

George Eliot

Please help us improve with this one minute survey (opens in a new tab)
George Eliot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons George Eliot is the pseudonym created in 1857 by the aspiring writer Marian Evans. In a letter to her publisher William Blackwood, Evans suggested that the name George Eliot should be assigned to her work in place of her own. The male name was created partly to conceal the gender of the author, and partly to disguise her irregular social position, living as an unmarried woman with a married man. Eliot assured Blackwood - who was at that time unaware of her true identity - that the pen name was necessary to employ 'as a tub to throw to the whale in case of curious enquiries'. The name George Eliot was used to publish all of her fictional work and ensured that Eliot's novels were taken seriously. Unlike Charlotte Brontë's pen name Currer Bell, which has fallen into disuse, the name George Eliot is still employed today to identify one of the most influential novelists of the Victorian era. Born Mary Anne Evans on 22nd November 1819 to the second wife of Robert Evans, estate manager for the Newdigate family of Arbury Hall in Warwickshire, Mary Anne spent much of her young life in this rural...
Read the essay: George Eliot by Charlotte Barrett
# Title Description Contributor
1 The Classical Feminist Tradition (lecture)

Lecture by Professor Paul H. Fry, part of Open Yale course 'Introduction to Theory of Literature...

OpenYale
2 Literature and Form 3: Multiple Plotting

Dr Catherine Brown gives the third lecture in the Literature and Form lecture series. Including...

Catherine Brown
3 George Eliot - A Very Large Brain

Dr Catherine Brown gives a talk on George Eliot and her influences

Catherine Brown
# Title Description Contributor
1 The Women who 'Meant to Do It': George Eliot and Celebrity Performance

The novelist Patricia Duncker gives the keynote lecture at the Life-Writing and Female Celebrity...

Patricia Duncker
2 Literature and Form 3: Multiple Plotting

Dr Catherine Brown gives the third lecture in the Literature and Form lecture series. Including...

Catherine Brown
3 George Eliot - A Very Large Brain

In this ten minute podcast, Dr Catherine Brown discusses George Eliot's intellectual...

Catherine Brown
4 George Eliot 3. Reception History

In this third and final podcast, Dr Catherine Brown discusses the popularity of George Eliot...

Catherine Brown
5 George Eliot 2. Genre and Justice

The second lecture in the series on George Eliot considers how narrative justice operates in...

Catherine Brown
6 George Eliot 1. Intellect and Consciousness

In this lecture Dr Catherine Brown brings her discussion to focus primarily upon Eliot's...

Catherine Brown
# Essay Title Description Contributor
1 Literature and Victorian Religion

Most of the high profile female writers of this period were committed Christians. The Broad...

Julian Thompson
2 Feminist Approaches to Literature

This essay offers a very basic introduction to feminist literary theory, and a compendium of...

Kate O'Connor
3 George Eliot and The Influence of Science

Why Science?



In his 1873 review of Middlemarch, Henry...

Charlotte Barrett
4 George Eliot
...
Charlotte Barrett
5 Science and Religion

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, William Paley published Natural Theology (...

Charlotte Barrett
# Title Description Author
1 The lifted veil

ebook version of The lifted veil

Eliot, George, 1819-1880
2 Mr. Gilfil's love story

ebook version of Mr. Gilfil's love story

Eliot, George, 1819-1880
3 The mill on the Floss

ebook version of The mill on the Floss

Eliot, George, 1819-1880
4 Felix Holt, the radical

ebook version of Felix Holt, the radical

Eliot, George, 1819-1880
5 The sad fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton

ebook version of The sad fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton

Eliot, George, 1819-1880
6 Janet's repentance

ebook version of Janet's repentance

Eliot, George, 1819-1880
7 The physiology of common life

This scientific text, by George Eliot's partner, was thought to be highly influential for Eliot...

George Henry Lewes
8 On the Origin of Species

Publisher info: London: John Murray, 1859.

Charles Darwin
9 Woolf on Behn

Chapter four of Virgina Woolf's critical text 'A Room of One's Own' discusses the influence and...

Virginia Woolf
10 George Eliot's poetry, and other studies.

15th ed. New York &c.

Rose Elizabeth Cleveland
11 The Mill on the Floss

Edinburgh: William Blackwood

George Eliot
12 The Spanish gypsy, a poem by George Eliot

2nd ed.. Edinb. &c.

George Eliot
13 Daniel Deronda

Edinb. &c.

George Eliot
14 Middlemarch: a study of provincial life

Parts 1-2 (Vol I), 3-4 (Vol II), 5-6 (Vol III), 7-8 (Vol IV) numbered consecutively. Originally...

George Eliot
15 George Eliot's life as related in her letters and journals (v. 3)

Arranged and edited by her husband J.W. Cross.
Volume III - Sunset. ...

George Eliot
16 George Eliot's life as related in her letters and journals (v. 2)

Arranged and edited by her husband J.W. Cross.
Valum II - Famous ...

George Eliot
17 Adam Bede

Stereotyped edition.
Series: Novels of George Eliot vol. 1
Edinb. &c...

George Eliot
18 George Eliot

Part of the 'Eminient Women Series' edited by John H. Ingram.

Mathilde Blind