Okay so the weekend is once more upon us
and time for a little more culture and also a bit of a gossip – oh yes the
author we are looking at today certainly raised a few eyebrows in her time! George
Eliot was the penname used by Mary Anne Evans (also known as Marian Evans), who
was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Mary Anne Evans (1819 – 1880) wrote seven
novels including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861)
and the work she is best known for Middlemarch (1871/72). Most of her novels were set in middle England
and are known for their realism and the psychological insight into their
complicated characters. Her last novel, Daniel Deronda was published in 1876
and is the only one set in the contemporary Victorian society of her day.
You may be wondering why Mary Anne decided
to use a male penname for her work, as in Victorian England it was not unusual
for a women to be published. Maybe the answer can be found in one of the essays
she wrote for the Westminster Review in 1856 entitled “Silly Novels by Lady
Novelists”. The essay criticised the trivial plots of stories by lady novelists.
Mary Anne was a questioner and a free spirit who did not want to be confined to
the romantic notions associated with the female writers of that time. She
appreciated, strove for, and achieved realism in her novels, and maybe believed
that writing using a male name would help her to be taken seriously.
You were promised a bit of gossip about our
much acclaimed author and so here it goes! Mary Anne met George Henry Lewes
(1817-1878) in 1851. Lewes was a leading philosopher, and a literary and
theatre critic. He was also married. It is believed that the Lewes had an open
marriage, that is one where both partners were free to develop other
relationships, and that as well as their own three children his wife had given
birth to several other children by another man (or men?). By 1854 George Lewes
and Mary Anne Evans were living together as man and wife. Now we all know that
in the Victorian era it was not unusual for people to have extra marital
affairs, but these were usually carried out in a discreet manner. What was
unusual, and caused quite a scandal among her family and some friends, was the
openness in which Mary Anne and Lewes conducted their relationship. They
considered themselves married and she often referred to herself as Marian Evans
Lewes and to him as her husband. Mary
Anne and George lived together for over twenty years until his death in 1878.
Mary Anne continued her controversial
lifestyle when she married John Cross, a man twenty years younger than herself,
in May1880. At least this legal marriage helped to placate some of her family members,
in particular her brother. Mary Anne now took on the name of Cross. However, in
December of the same year she passed away at the age of sixty one, after suffering
for some time from kidney disease. Her wish had been to be buried at
Westminster Abbey; however this was denied due to her denial of the Christian
faith and her “irregular” relationship with Lewes. Instead she is buried in
Highgate Cemetery, London, next to George Henry Lewes, in an area reserved for
religious dissenters. I think it would
have pleased her immensely that in 1980, to mark the century of her death, a memorial
stone was erected in her honour in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.
As an extra treat I have included a clip from
the BBCs 1994 adaptation of Middlemarch. Enjoy!
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