George Eliot

British writer, given the name George Eliot by her lover, writer George Henry Lewes inasmuch as a woman writer would not have been given any credence. One of the most intellectually rigorous writers of the 19th century, her books include the classics "The Mill on the Floss", "Silas Marner" and "Middlemarch," 1871, considered her masterpiece. The fifth child of an ambitious farmer, Eliot was considered intelligent and gifted, though remarkably unattractive. She was brought up in a constricting conventional religious atmosphere. After her mom died in 1836, she cared for her beloved dad until his death. At the age of 22 she declared herself an atheist. which had alienated her from her father. She moved to London to work where she learned editorial work as an assistant on the Westminster Review; her first book was published in 1860, when she was 40. Though she longed to settle down with an understanding husband and start a family, Eliot was thwarted by her growing notoriety as well by a difficult and high-strung personality prone to depression. She settled for a series of love affairs with married men who were attracted to her vast intelligence. In 1851, while working as a journalist, she met her match, the married writer George Henry Lewes. Three years later they began to openly live together, an act which severed for good any chance Eliot might have of being accepted into Victorian society. With Lewes, however, she found the kind of peace that allowed her to produce her novels. As he was a preeminent writer, people overlooked the unconventional status of his living arrangement in order to meet him, and enlarged her social and intellectual milieu. She and Lewes lived together until his death on 28 November 1878. After two years mourning, Eliot married John Cross, more than 20 years her junior. Their match raised eyebrows, especially after a mysterious episode in which Cross jumped from the window of their honeymoon suite into the Venice Grand Canal. He was rescued by passing gondoliers and all appeared normal after then. Eliot was not in good health by then and less than six months later, she died of kidney disease on 22 December 1880 at 10pm in London, aged 61. Link to Wikipedia biography