English literature
George Eliot
Biography
ELIOT (Eliot) George (pseudonym; real name Mary Ann Evans, Evans) (November 22, 1819, Arbury, Warwickshire - December 22, 1880, London), English writer.
Mary Ann (later shortened to Marian) was born in a small rural parish in the heart of England. "George Eliot" is her pseudonym, under which she published her first story, The Woeful Lot of the Reverend Amos Burton (1857), which, with two others, compiled the collection Scenes from the Life of the Clergy (1858), and with which she signed her subsequent works. In her youth, she attended educational institutions for girls and read a lot, making up for the meager diet of knowledge that was released there. She was with her father, caring for him until his death in 1849, then moved to London. In October 1853 she challenged public opinion, when she got along with the scientist and writer J. G. Lewis, who divorced his wife, but could not, according to English law, terminate the marriage with her. The long life together of Marian and Lewis had a beneficial effect on their common destiny: both managed to realize their talent. Lewis wrote a number of studies that earned him a name, and Marian Evans became George Eliot.
The gift of the artist was combined with George Eliot with analytical warehouse mind. She was one of the most educated women of the era, closely followed the development of philosophical, sociological and natural science thought, long years edited literary section of the Westminster Review, translated into English language"The Life of Jesus" by D. F. Strauss, "The Essence of Christianity" by Feuerbach and "Ethics" by Spinoza. Human open-minded she greeted French Revolution 1848, although for England she considered acceptable only the path of gradual reforms. Her worldview could be called radical conservatism.
The life of George Eliot, not rich in bright events, lived in accordance with its inherent heightened consciousness of duty to loved ones and love for order and regularity, was marked by exceptional spiritual and intellectual activity. The authority of the writer was enormous, one might say, indisputable, and in the sphere of both literature and morality. She was looked upon as a mentor, a teacher of life. They called her the Sibyl. Queen Victoria herself was a zealous admirer of her. Prominent writers different generations, from the hardened Turgenev to the young Henry James, visited the Priors House, the London residence of the Lewises, to testify to George Eliot their respect and sympathy.
George Eliot owned seven novels, short stories, essays and poetry. Her work, like that of her contemporary Anthony Trollope, became the link connecting the English social-critical novel of the 1830s-1860s. (Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell) and psychological prose turn of the 19th-20th centuries In many ways, the views and creative attitudes of George Eliot were determined by the philosophy of positivism. She, in particular, owes him the importance that she attached to heredity, and the conviction that a person’s actions in his youth influence both his own fate and the fate of those around him. In the stories and novels Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner (1861), the writer gravitated towards depicting the ordinary, striving for the utmost accuracy and objectivity of the drawing. Here she was helped by the experience accumulated over thirty years of life in the provinces. And since from her youth she was distinguished by a penetrating mind, a tenacious look and great memory, then her countrymen, reading these books and later written "Middlemarch" (1872), only wondered how Mr. Eliot got such a thorough knowledge of their parish affairs, gossip and everyday stories: they could not help but "recognize" her characters.
Starting with the historical novel Romola (1863), in which Savonarola was introduced, the writer sought to saturate her novels - Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Daniel Deronda (1876) - with philosophical, political and sociological material. But it was precisely “politics” that was the least successful for her, here her manner sometimes became overly informative, if not poster-like. But it was in the last three novels that the skill of the writer manifested itself with the greatest force - the skill of disclosure in writing human personality, individual character in all its multidimensionality, inconsistency and ambiguity. A character molded into the flesh of living, intense, beating and rebellious feelings: “The intensity of passions in Middlemarch permeates not only the plot, but also the image Each chapter has its own trajectory strong feelings The sophistication of the novel lies in George Eliot's treatment of feelings as important factor that determines human behavior "(English literary critic Barbara Hardy). "Middlemarch" is not named here by chance: it is the most perfect work of George Eliot - a wide panorama English life the first third of the 19th century, an artistic section of the whole society in miniature, an encyclopedia of the human heart.
Eliot George (1819-1880), English writer. Real name Mary Ann Evans. Born November 22, 1819 in a rural parish on the estate of Arbury, Warwickshire in central England. Received education in educational institution for girls. She spent the first part of her life caring for her father. After the death of his father in 1849, he decides to move to London. In 1853, despite the opinion of the London public, she began to live with the scientist and literary figure J. G. Lewis, who was still married at that time. This union had a beneficial effect on the fate of both. Lewis became widely known for a number of studies he wrote, and Mary Ann became a writer under the pseudonym George Eliot.
The life of the writer was quiet, but intellectually and spiritually rich. George Eliot had great authority in the literary field, was widely known not only in her country, but also in Russia, Queen Victoria herself was among her admirers. The writer's Peru owns seven novels, short stories, essays and poems. Literary activity George Eliot began in the late 50s of the nineteenth century, her first book was Scenes from the Life of the Clergy. Eliot is considered one of the most educated women of that era, for a long time she was the editor of the literary magazine Westminster Review, translating foreign books into English. Her most significant work is Middlemarch. First, in 1871, the first part of it was published, and in 1872 the second part was published. The last novel, entitled Daniel Deronda, appeared in 1876.
After the death of J. G. Lewis in 1878, the writer devoted all her time to publishing his manuscripts. In 1880, George Eliot remarried a family friend, DW Cross. The writer died in London on December 22, 1880.
Eliot's work is close to naturalism in some ways, which, however, did not prevent her in the novel The Mill on the Floss (Russian translation, 1860) from typical picture life of the provincial bourgeoisie.
Works signed by the male name "George Eliot" (George Eliot), already a century and a half. The way of life, way of life and traditions, against which the action of such novels as "Middlemarch", "Siles Manner", "The Mill on the Floss" unfolds, has long gone down in history, but the concreteness and recognizability of details, the psychological accuracy of the characters and the relationships of the characters, as well as masterfully painted pictures of old England attract new and new generations of readers to them. Mary Evans, in the marriage of Cross, was not the only writer who preferred to publish her works under a male name - it is enough to recall such a well-known in literature XXI century name like Georges Sand. However, such a subtle connoisseur human souls how Charles Dickens, not being familiar with the writer, immediately guessed that a woman calls herself George Elliot.
Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans ( Mary Ann Evans was born on November 22, 1819 in a house located in countryside Derbyshire. Her father, Robert Evans, a native of Wales, was the manager of Arbury Hall, the family estate of the Newdigate barons, and her mother, Christina Pearson, was the daughter of a farmer. Robert's two children from a previous marriage were already growing up in the family, as well as eldest daughter Chrissy and son Isaac. Mary was considered an ugly girl, but she was smart and loved to read. Robert Evans understood that neither external data nor a dowry could provide his daughter with an advantageous marriage and a worthy place in society, so he decided to give her a good education. From the age of five to sixteen, the girl studied at closed schools.
Christina Evans died in 1836. Mary took over
and all household, she did not part with her father until his death in 1849. The girl was allowed to use the magnificent library of Archery Hall, and she perfectly studied the books of the classics, including in Latin and Greek. In 1840, after her brother's marriage, Mary Evans and her father moved to the town of Foulshill, near Coventry. There she met the philanthropist manufacturer Charles Bray, who maintained extensive communication with philosophers, writers, liberal religious figures, in particular, with Robert Owen, David Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach.
In 1846, Mary Evans anonymously published her first book, a translation of Strauss' Life of Christ. After the death of her father, she traveled around Europe for some time, then came to London, where she settled in the house of her old acquaintance from Coventry, the publisher John Chapman. He published the Westminster Review, a literary and philosophical journal, and after much hesitation and persuasion by Chapman, Mary, who began to call herself Marian, took the position of an unpaid assistant editor in the journal. Simultaneously with the enormous work that had to be done in the magazine, Marian was translating Feuerbach's book, The Essence of Christianity. This translation was published in 1854 and was the only work that Marian Evans published under her real name. In the same year, she met the philosopher and critic George Henry Lewis. Despite the fact that Lewis was married to Agnes Jervis and had three children, he entered into an agreement with his wife on mutual freedom; four children of Agnes
Whose father was the editor of the Daily Telegraph, Thornton Hart, were formally considered the children of Lewis, and divorce under the laws of that time was almost impossible. Although extramarital affairs were not uncommon in Victorian England, and among writers and journalists they were very common, open communication was considered a challenge to society. The romance of Marian Evans and George Lewis began in 1854 and marked a new stage her literary creativity. In the first months of their joint journey to Weimar, Marian completed the translation of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics and began to write fiction.
In 1857, the Blackwood Magazine began publishing a series of short stories entitled "Scenes from the Life of the Clergy" by George Elliot. The choice of a male pseudonym was not accidental - at that time, as to this day, "ladies'" prose is a priori considered as a frivolous entertaining reading; in addition, Marian did not want to draw the attention of readers to her person and the peculiarities of her personal life. In 1859, Marian wrote her first major novel, Adam Bede. The background for this book was the time familiar to her from the stories of her father - the end of the 18th century. The novel was extremely popular, and to this day is considered the best English novel in rural style. This book was admired by Queen Victoria, who commissioned the artist Edward Corbould to create a series of paintings based on Adam Bede.
Next novel, "The Mill on the Floss" (1860), described the events that took place during the youth of the writer herself, and the heroine of this work, Maggie Tewle
liver, in many ways resembled the young Mary Evans. On title page"Mills on the Floss" flaunted a dedication: "To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewis, I dedicate my third book, written in the sixth year of our life together". The following year, the writer published her last "autobiographical" work, Silas Marner. In 1863, Marian Evans wrote historical novel"Romola", which takes place in Renaissance Florence, and in 1866 - a sharp socio-critical narrative "Felix Holt, Radical". This was followed by the poem "Spanish Gypsy", written in blank verse, but she, like the poetic experiments of the young Mary Evans, was not successful. But the novel "Middlemarch" (1870), showing the story of the moral rebirth of heroes, became her best book and made the glory of English literature. The latest work writer was "Daniel Deronda", written in 1876.
The success of the George Elliot novels softened the public reaction to the union between Lewis and Evans, especially since their relationship had stood the test of time; in 1877, the writer was even introduced to Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Louise. Lewis died in 1877. For two years, Marian prepared for publication his last work, Life and Mind, and in May 1880 she again challenged society: she married old friend the family of John Cross, who was fifteen years her junior and depressed after her mother's death. However, the marriage was short: in December 1880, the writer died. Her ashes are buried in Highgate Cemetery, next to the grave of Henry Lewis.
Mary Ann Evans(real name George Eliot) was born November 22, 1819 in provincial England. Her father was a builder and part-time carpenter. Mother ran the household, and was known as a woman of unbending character, practical and active.
Three children, Christina, Isaac and Mary Ann had little fun in a small boring town. Twice a day a mail-coach with a coachman in a bright red livery drove past their house. Watching the passing carriage was the greatest entertainment of the children. Mary Ann later described life in hometown: "They lived here strong men who returned from the coal mines in the morning, they immediately fell on a dirty bed and slept until dark. In the evening they woke up only to spend most their money with friends in a pub. Workers from the weaving mill lived here, men and women, pale and haggard from working late into the night. The houses were neglected, as were the little children, for their mother gave all her strength to the loom.”
However, Mary Ann's parents belonged to the middle class, and the children did not know hunger and cold. But they were oppressed by the surrounding life. Mary Ann from the very beginning early childhood I didn't want to put up with this routine. When she was only four years old, she sat down at the piano and played it as best she could. She could not distinguish one note from another, but did this only so that the servants could see what an important and refined lady she was!
But her mother's health suddenly began to deteriorate, and when the girl was five years old, she and her sister were sent to a boarding school, where they spent 4 years. At the age of 9, she was transferred to another school, a bigger one. Mary Ann loved to learn and soon surpassed the rest of the students. But most of all, the girl loved to read, and she kept her first book, The Life of Lynette, until the end of her days. Then she began to write books herself. She wrote her first book like this: her friend lost a book that Mary Ann did not have time to finish reading. Then Mary Ann decided to write the end for herself, and wrote a whole thick volume, which was later read by the whole school.
When Mary Ann was 16, her mother died. The elder sister soon married. And Mary Ann had to take charge of the entire household. So from a schoolgirl she turned into a housewife, whose life was limited by "four walls". But the all-consuming love of books and the thirst for knowledge remained. She read the most serious scientific work in history and philosophy. She even found good teacher, who began to teach her at home French, German and Italian. Another teacher taught her music. A little later, she began to learn also Greek, Latin and Spanish. Later in one of the books she will write: “You can never imagine what it means to have a male mindset and remain in the slavery of a female body.”
Soon, largely under the pressure of Mary Ann, the family moved to live in Big city where Mary Ann finally had educated friends and an enlightened social circle. She was especially friendly with husband and wife Bray, who influenced her intellectual and spiritual development considerable influence. After the death of her father, Mary Ann, together with the Bray family, goes to the Continent, where she visits Paris, Milan and Geneva, goes to theaters and museums, gets acquainted with famous people and listens to a course of lectures on experimental physics. After this long trip, she has so little money left that, in order to continue taking music lessons, she decides to sell her Encyclopedia Britannica.
Shortly after returning to England, Miss Evans meets Mr. Chapman, editor of a major metropolitan magazine, who was so impressed with Mary Ann's erudition and abilities that he offered her a position as assistant editor - an unusual post for a woman at that time, which before her was held exclusively by men. Mary Ann agreed and moved to London. How different was life in the capital from life in a provincial town! The doors of the best houses were opened for Miss Evans, she met great people and the best minds modernity. Now she is immersed in work with her head. At that time she was 32 years old. Then she met George Lewis, a witty and versatile man, a brilliant intellectual, and a good actor who wrote The History of Philosophy, two novels, and collaborated with many metropolitan magazines. Despite this, he was very unhappy in his personal and family life. That he fell in love with Mary Ann is not at all surprising. She, at first, only admired him, and, perhaps, felt sorry for him and his three sons because of family troubles. “Mr. Lewis is kind and considerate and has won my respect in many ways. Like few people in this world, he is much better than he looks. A man who has a mind and soul, although hiding them behind a mask of frivolity.
Meanwhile, Mary Ann's health began to deteriorate, she was very tired from permanent job She is haunted by constant headaches. And in 1854 she leaves the magazine and leaves with Lewis and his three sons for Germany. Her many friends condemn this union, not consecrated by the bonds of marriage, and consider her the most big mistake in her life.
To earn a living, while Lewis writes the great Life of Goethe, Mary Ann writes articles for various German magazines, and not a single article is published under her name - to preserve the reputation of the magazine, no one should know that these articles were written by woman!
After returning to England, already at the age of 37, Mary Ann finally decides to write a novel for the first time since her childhood experiences. "Write real romance It was always my childhood dream,” said Mary Ann Evans, “But I never ventured into it, although I felt that I was strong in design, dialogue and dramatic descriptions.” After she wrote the first part of Scenes from a Clerical Life, she read it to Lewis. "We both cried over her and then he kissed me and said he believed in me."
Lewis sent the novel to one of the publishers under the pseudonym "George Eliot" - the first name that came to mind - saying that it was a novel by one of his friends. The novel was accepted for publication, and Mary Ann received a check for £250. This encouraged the writer so much that the next two novels were written in one breath. George Eliot's popularity began to rise, and even Thackeray himself (the author of Vanity Fair) said of him: great writer!" And Charles Dickens, noting the humor and pathos of the novels, made a guess that the author must be a woman!
For her fourth book, Adam Bede, which was a resounding success and subsequently translated into many languages, Mary Ann Evans has already received 4 thousand pounds, poverty and deprivation are left behind. And since many contenders for the authorship of the novel began to appear, the real name of the writer had to be revealed.
With the ever-increasing royalties from the books, Evans and Lewis acquired large estate, in which they quiet life meeting only a few friends. Lewis's health deteriorated greatly and he died in 1878. For Mary Ann, this loss was irreparable. She lost his love and his support. After all, he idolized her all his life. And he wrote about her: “From the time I got to know her (and to know her means to love her), my life has received a new birth. It is to her that I owe my prosperity and my happiness.”
At the time, their family friend was John Walter Cross, a prosperous banker many years younger than Mary Ann. He became an indispensable assistant in her affairs after the death of Lewis. She was extremely depressed, and Cross did everything possible to bring her out of this state. In May 1880, a year and a half after Lewis's death, they married. Mary Ann wrote then: “Thanks to marriage, I seem to have been reborn. But I would still willingly take my own life if it could resurrect Lewis."
On one of the December days of the same year, Mary Ann caught a bad cold and died 2 days later. Her family life only lasted six months! She was buried in the London cemetery. On her gravestone is a quote from one of her poems:
"Oh, may I join the invisible chorus of those immortals who will live forever in better creatures."
Near her grave is the grave of George Lewis.
Big Soviet Encyclopedia notes:
"... E.'s novels (including Felix Holt, the Radical, vols. 1-3, 1866, Russian translation 1867; Middlemarch, vols. 1-4, 1871-72, Russian translation 1873) were popular in Russia, they were highly appreciated by N. G. Chernyshevsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. S. Turgenev, L. N. Tolstoy.
Mary Ann Evans preferred to write realistic works, so the first and only genre work Mary Ann became the story "The Lifted Veil" (The Lifted Veil, 1859), about a man with the gift of foresight. This is one of classical works Victorian Gothic. In one of Evans's most significant novels, "Silas Marner" ("Silas Marner, The weaver of Raveloe", 1961), published in the same year as " Big hopes”Dickens, despite the realism of what is happening, events develop according to the plan of one of our favorite fairy tales, Rumplestiltskin (Rumplestiltskin). Main actors: the weaver Siles Marner, according to the description of the villagers has supernatural powers, small in stature, as if belonging to a long-lost race. Rumpelstiltskin dreams of exchanging his gold for a child, and Siles Marner, having lost his wealth, finds a golden-haired foundling.
Eliot's work is close to naturalism in some ways, which, however, did not prevent her in the novel The Mill on the Floss (Russian translation of 1860) from reproducing a typical picture of the life of provincial philistinism.
Works signed by the male name "George Eliot" (George Eliot), already a century and a half. The way of life, way of life and traditions, against which the action of such novels as "Middlemarch", "Siles Manner", "The Mill on the Floss" unfolds, has long gone down in history, but the concreteness and recognizability of details, the psychological accuracy of the characters and the relationships of the characters, as well as masterfully painted pictures of old England attract new and new generations of readers to them. Mary Evans, married Cross, was not the only writer who preferred to publish her work under a male name - just think of such a well-known name in the literature of the XXI century as Georges Sand. However, such a subtle connoisseur of human souls as Charles Dickens, not being familiar with the writer, immediately guessed that a woman calls herself George Elliot.
Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans was born on November 22, 1819 in a house located in the countryside of Derbyshire. Her father, Robert Evans, a native of Wales, was the manager of Arbury Hall, the family estate of the Newdigate barons, and her mother, Christina Pearson, was the daughter of a farmer. Robert's two children from a previous marriage were already growing up in the family, as well as the eldest daughter Chrissy and son Isaac. Mary was considered an ugly girl, but she was smart and loving.
la read. Robert Evans understood that neither external data nor a dowry could provide his daughter with an advantageous marriage and a worthy place in society, so he decided to give her a good education. From the age of five to sixteen, the girl studied in closed schools.
Christina Evans died in 1836. Mary took over the entire household, she did not part with her father until his death in 1849. The girl was allowed to use the magnificent library of Archery Hall, and she perfectly studied the books of the classics, including in Latin and Greek. In 1840, after her brother's marriage, Mary Evans and her father moved to the town of Foulshill, near Coventry. There she met the philanthropist manufacturer Charles Breuil, who maintained extensive communication with philosophers, writers, liberal religious figures, in particular, with Robert Owen, David Strauss, Ludwig Feuerbach.
In 1846, Mary Evans anonymously published her first book, a translation of Strauss' Life of Christ. After the death of her father, she traveled around Europe for some time, then came to London, where she settled in the house of her old acquaintance from Coventry, the publisher John Chapman. He published the literary and philosophical journal Westminster Review, and after long
Chapman's persuasion and persuasion Mary, who began to call herself Marian, took the post of assistant editor in the magazine without pay. Simultaneously with the enormous work that had to be done in the magazine, Marian was translating Feuerbach's book, The Essence of Christianity. This translation was published in 1854 and was the only work that Marian Evans published under her real name. In the same year, she met the philosopher and critic George Henry Lewis. Despite the fact that Lewis was married to Agnes Jervis and had three children, he entered into an agreement with his wife on mutual freedom; Agnes' four children, whose father was the editor of the Daily Telegraph, Thornton Hart, were formally considered the children of Lewis, and divorce under the laws of that time was almost impossible. Although extramarital affairs were not uncommon in Victorian England, and they were quite common among writers and journalists, an open relationship was considered a challenge to society. The novel by Marian Evans and George Lewis began in 1854 and marked a new stage in her literary work. In the first months of their joint trip to Weimar, Marian completed the translation of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics and began writing fiction.
In 1857, in the Blackwood Mag.
ezin" began to publish a cycle of stories entitled "Scenes from the Life of the Clergy", the author of which was George Elliot. The choice of a male pseudonym was not accidental - at that time, as to this day, "ladies'" prose is a priori considered as a frivolous entertaining reading; except In addition, Marian did not want to draw the attention of readers to her person and the peculiarities of her personal life.In 1859, Marian wrote her first big novel called "Adam Bede".The background for this book was the time familiar to her from the stories of her father - the end of the 18th century. was extremely popular, and to this day is considered the best English novel in the "country" style.This book was admired by Queen Victoria, who commissioned a series of paintings based on "Adam Beed" by the artist Edward Corbould.
The next novel, The Mill on the Floss (1860), described the events that took place during the youth of the writer herself, and the heroine of this work, Maggie Tulliver, in many ways resembled the young Mary Evans. On the title page of The Mill on the Floss was a dedication: "To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewis, I dedicate my third book, written in the sixth year of our life together." The following year, the writer published her last "autobiographical" work.
eating Silas Marner. In 1863, Marian Evans wrote the historical novel Romola, set in Renaissance Florence, and in 1866, the poignant socio-critical narrative Felix Holt, the Radical. This was followed by the poem "Spanish Gypsy", written in blank verse, but she, like the poetic experiments of the young Mary Evans, was not successful. But the novel "Middlemarch" (1870), showing the story of the moral rebirth of heroes, became her best book and made the glory of English literature. The last work of the writer was "Daniel Deronda", written in 1876.
The success of the George Elliot novels softened the public reaction to the union between Lewis and Evans, especially since their relationship had stood the test of time; in 1877, the writer was even introduced to Queen Victoria's daughter, Princess Louise. Lewis died in 1877. For two years, Marian prepared his last work, Life and Mind, for publication, and in May 1880 she again challenged society: she married an old family friend, John Cross, who was fifteen years younger than her and was depressed after the death of her mother. However, the marriage was short: in December 1880, the writer died. Her ashes are buried in Highgate Cemetery, next to the grave of Henry Lewis.
George Eliot real name is Mary Ann Evans. Born November 22, 1819 at the Arbury estate in Warwickshire - died December 22, 1880 in London. English writer.
In 1841 she moved with her father to Foulshill, near Coventry.
In 1854, her translation of The Essence of Christianity by L. Feuerbach was published. At the same time, her civil marriage began with J. G. Lewis, a famous literary critic who also wrote for scientific and philosophical themes. In the first months of their life together, Mary Ann completed the translation of Spinoza's Ethics and in September 1856 turned to fiction.
Her first work was a series of three stories, which appeared in Blackwoods Magazine in 1857 under the general heading "Scenes of Clerical Life" and the pseudonym "George Eliot". Like many other writers of the 19th century (, Marco Vovchok, the Bronte sisters - “Carrer, Ellis and Acton Bell”, Krestovsky-Khvoshchinskaya) - Mary Evans used a male pseudonym in order to evoke in the public serious attitude to their writings and taking care of the inviolability of their personal lives. (In the 19th century, her writings were translated into Russian without revealing a pseudonym, which was inclined as male name and surname: "George Eliot's novel"). Nevertheless, Charles Dickens immediately guessed the woman in the mysterious Eliot.
Anticipating her future and best creations, the "Scenes" are full of intimate memories of the former, who did not yet know railways England. Published in 1859, the novel Adam Bede (eng. Adam Bede), an unusually popular and perhaps the best pastoral novel in English literature, brought Eliot to the forefront of the Victorian novelists.
In "Adam Bide" George Eliot wrote about the times of her father's youth (England late XVIII century), in The Mill on the Floss (eng. The Mill on the Floss, 1860) turned to her own early impressions. The heroine of the novel, the passionate and spiritual Maggie Tulliver, has much in common with the young Mary Ann Evans. The most substantive of Eliot's "rural" novels is Silas Marner. The characters live a life convincing in the eyes of the reader, they are surrounded by a concrete, recognizable world. This is Eliot's last "autobiographical" novel.
Romola (1863) tells of 15th-century Florence, and the paintings of Renaissance Italy are as subtracted from books as they were nourished by the memories of the “scene” of the outgoing England. In Felix Holt the Radical (1866), returning to English life, Eliot discovered the temperament of a sharp social critic.
Eliot's universally recognized masterpiece is the novel "Middlemarch" (eng. Middlemarch); published in parts in 1871-1872.
Eliot shows how a powerful striving for good can destroy a hidden weakness, how complexities of character nullify the noblest aspirations, how a moral rebirth befalls people who are not initially bad at all.
Last novel Eliot, "Daniel Deronda", appeared in 1876. Lewis died two years later, and the writer devoted herself to preparing his manuscripts for publication.
In May 1880, she married an old family friend, D. W. Cross, but she died on December 22, 1880.
Bibliography of George Eliot:
1859 - "Adam Beed"
1860 - "The Mill on the Floss"
1861 - "Siles Marner"
1863 - "Romola"
1866 - "Felix Holt, Radical"
1871-1872 - "Middlemarch"
1876 - "Daniel Deronda".
