Editing George Eliot (section)

== Life ==

=== Early life and education ===
Mary Ann Evans was born in [[Nuneaton]], [[Warwickshire]], [[England]], at South Farm on the [[Arbury Hall]] estate.<ref name="cooke">Cooke, George Willis. ''George Eliot: A Critical Study of her Life, Writings and Philosophy''. Whitefish: Kessinger, 2004. [https://books.google.com/books?id=1xyX3SVQinQC&dq=amos+barton+church&pg=PA242]</ref> She was the third child of Robert Evans (1773–1849), manager of the Arbury Hall estate, and Christiana Evans (''née'' Pearson, 1788–1836), daughter of a local mill-owner. Her full siblings were: Christiana, known as Chrissey (1814–1859), Isaac (1816–1890), and twin brothers who died a few days after birth in March 1821. She also had a half-brother, Robert Evans (1802–1864), and half-sister, Frances "Fanny" Evans Houghton (1805–1882), from her father's previous marriage to Harriet Poynton (1780–1809). In early 1820, the family moved to a house named [[Griff House]], between [[Nuneaton]] and [[Bedworth]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.notablebiographies.com/Du-Fi/Eliot-George.html|title=George Eliot Biography – life, childhood, children, name, story, death, history, wife, school, young|website=www.notablebiographies.com|access-date=23 July 2018}}</ref>

The young Evans was a voracious reader and obviously intelligent. Because she was not considered physically beautiful, Evans was not thought to have much chance of marriage, and this, coupled with her intelligence, led her father to invest in an education not often afforded to women.<ref>Karl, Frederick R. ''George Eliot: Voice of a Century''. Norton, 1995. pp. 24–25</ref> From ages five to nine, she boarded with her sister Chrissey at Miss Latham's school in [[Attleborough, Warwickshire|Attleborough]], from ages nine to thirteen at Mrs. Wallington's school in Nuneaton, and from ages thirteen to sixteen at Miss Franklin's school in [[Coventry]]. At Mrs. Wallington's school, she was taught by the [[evangelicalism|evangelical]] Maria Lewis—to whom her earliest surviving letters are addressed. In the religious atmosphere of the [[Mary Franklin|Misses Franklin]]'s school, Evans was exposed to a quiet, disciplined belief opposed to evangelicalism.<ref>Karl, Frederick R. ''George Eliot: Voice of a Century''. Norton, 1995. p. 31</ref>

After age sixteen, Evans had little formal education.<ref>Karl, Frederick R. George ''Eliot: Voice of a Century.''  Norton, 1995. p. 52</ref> Thanks to her father's important role on the estate, she was allowed access to the library of Arbury Hall, which greatly aided her self-education and breadth of learning. Her classical education left its mark; Christopher Stray has observed that "George Eliot's novels draw heavily on Greek literature (only one of her books can be printed correctly without the use of a Greek [[typeface]]), and her themes are often influenced by Greek tragedy".<ref>[[Christopher Stray]] ''Classics Transformed'', p. 81</ref> Her frequent visits to the estate also allowed her to contrast the wealth in which the local landowner lived with the lives of the often much poorer people on the estate, and different lives lived in parallel would reappear in many of her works. The other important early influence in her life was religion. She was brought up within a [[low church]] [[Anglican]] family, but at that time the [[English Midlands|Midlands]] was an area with a growing number of [[English Dissenters|religious dissenters]].

=== Move to Coventry ===
In 1836, her mother died and Evans (then 16) returned home to act as housekeeper, though she continued to correspond with her tutor Maria Lewis. When she was 21, her brother Isaac married and took over the family home, so Evans and her father moved to [[Foleshill]] near [[Coventry]]. The closeness to Coventry society brought new influences, most notably those of Charles and Cara Bray. [[Charles Bray]] had become rich as a ribbon manufacturer and had used his wealth in the building of schools and in other philanthropic causes. Evans, who had been struggling with religious doubts for some time, became intimate friends with the radical, free-thinking Brays, who had a casual view of marital obligations<ref name=":1">{{cite web |date=6 August 2017 |title=Los Angeles Review of Books |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/hampering-threadlike-pressure-a-new-biography-of-george-eliot/ |access-date=22 October 2023 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books }}</ref> and the Brays' "Rosehill" home was a haven for people who held and debated radical views. The people whom the young woman met at the Brays' house included [[Robert Owen]], [[Herbert Spencer]], [[Harriet Martineau]], and [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]]. Through this society Evans was introduced to more liberal and agnostic theologies and to writers such as [[David Strauss]] and [[Ludwig Feuerbach]], who cast doubt on the literal truth of Biblical texts. In fact, her first major literary work was an English translation of Strauss's ''Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet''  as ''The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined'' (1846), which she completed after it had been left incomplete by Elizabeth "Rufa" Brabant, another member of the "Rosehill Circle".

The Strauss book had caused a sensation in Germany by arguing that the miracles in the New Testament were mythical additions with little basis in fact.<ref>''The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined'' by David Friedrich Strauss 2010 {{ISBN|1-61640-309-8}} pp. 39–43, 87–91</ref><ref>''The Making of the New Spirituality'' by James A. Herrick 2003 {{ISBN|0-8308-2398-0}} pp. 58–65</ref><ref name=Fami81>''Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth'' by Michael J. McClymond (2004) {{ISBN|0802826806}} p.  82</ref> Evans's translation had a similar effect in England, with [[Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury|the Earl of Shaftesbury]] calling her translation "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell."<ref name=Dawes77 >''The historical Jesus question'' by Gregory W. Dawes 2001 {{ISBN|0-664-22458-X}} pp. 77–79</ref><ref name="Mead2007">{{cite book|first=James K.|last=Mead|title=Biblical Theology: Issues, Methods, and Themes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A_mAMo9ziKUC&pg=PA31|date= 2007|publisher=Presbyterian Publishing Corp|isbn=978-0-664-22972-6|page=31}}</ref><ref name="Hesketh2017">{{cite book|first=Ian|last=Hesketh|title=Victorian Jesus: J.R. Seeley, Religion, and the Cultural Significance of Anonymity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4NA4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97|date=2017|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1-4426-6359-6|page=97}}</ref><ref name="Tearle2016">{{cite book|first=Oliver|last=Tearle|title=The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers' Journey Through Curiosities of History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ZW0DAAAQBAJ&pg=PT90|date= 2016|publisher=Michael O'Mara Books|isbn=978-1-78243-558-7|page=90}}</ref> Later she translated Feuerbach's ''The Essence of Christianity'' (1854). The ideas in these books would have an effect on her own fiction.

As a product of their friendship, Bray published some of Evans's own earliest writing, such as reviews, in his newspaper the ''[[Coventry Herald and Observer]]''.<ref name = Eliot>{{cite journal |title=George Eliot's Earliest Prose: The Coventry "Herald" and the Coventry Fiction |first=Kathleen |last=McCormick |journal=Victorian Periodicals Review |volume=19 |number=2 |date=Summer 1986 |pages=57–62 |jstor =20082202}}</ref> As Evans began to question her own religious faith, her father threatened to throw her out of the house, but his threat was not carried out. Instead, she respectfully attended church and continued to keep house for him until his death in 1849, when she was 30. Five days after her father's funeral, she travelled to Switzerland with the Brays. She decided to stay on in [[Geneva]] alone, living first on the lake at Plongeon (near the present-day United Nations buildings) and then on the second floor of a house owned by her friends François and Juliet d'Albert Durade on the rue de Chanoines (now the rue de la Pelisserie). She commented happily that "one feels in a downy nest high up in a good old tree". Her stay is commemorated by a plaque on the building. While residing there, she read avidly and took long walks in the beautiful Swiss countryside, which was a great inspiration to her. François Durade painted her portrait there as well.<ref>Hardy, Barbara. ''George Eliot: A Critic's Biography''. Continuum. London: 2006, pp. 42–45.</ref>

=== Move to London and editorship of the ''Westminster Review'' ===
On her return to England the following year (1850), she moved to London with the intent of becoming a writer, and she began referring to herself as Marian Evans.<ref>{{cite letter| first = George| last = Eliot| recipient = John Chapman| subject =Marian Evans | date = 4 April 1851| publisher = The George Eliot Letters, Ed. Gordon S. Haight, Vol. I, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press (RE: First known instance of George Eliot signing her name as ′Marian Evans′)| id = 348}}</ref> She stayed at the house of [[John Chapman (publisher)|John Chapman]], the radical publisher whom she had met earlier at Rosehill and who had published her Strauss translation. She then joined Chapman's ''[[Ménage à trois|ménage-à-trois]]'' along with his wife and mistress.<ref name=":1" /> Chapman had recently purchased the campaigning, left-wing journal ''[[The Westminster Review]]''. Evans became its assistant editor in 1851 after joining just a year earlier. Evans's writings for the paper were comments on her views of society and the Victorian way of thinking.<ref name="Mackenzie14">{{cite journal |last1=Mackenzie |first1=Hazel |title=A Dialogue of Forms: The Display of Thinking in George Eliot's 'Poetry and Prose, From the Notebook of an Eccentric' and Impressions of Theophrastus Such |journal=Prose Studies |date=2014 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=117–129 |doi=10.1080/01440357.2014.944298|s2cid=170098666 |url=http://bear.buckingham.ac.uk/98/1/__TAIPAN_hazel.mackenzie_Documents_Research_Prose%20Studies%20-%20Form%20and%20Thinking%20in%20George%20Eliots%20Poetry%20and%20Prose%20and%20the%20Impressions%20of%20Theophrastus%20Such%20-%20Revised.pdf }}</ref> She was sympathetic to the lower classes and criticised organised religion throughout her articles and reviews and commented on contemporary ideas of the time.<ref name="Bodenheimer">{{cite journal |last1=Bodenheimer |first1=Rosemarie |title=Review of ''Before George Eliot: Marian Evans and the Periodical Press; Modernizing George Eliot: The Writer as Artist, Intellectual, Proto-Modernist, Cultural Critic'', by Fionnuala Dillane & K.{{nbsp}}M. Newton |journal=Victorian Studies |date=2014 |volume=56 |issue=4 |pages=714–717 |doi=10.2979/victorianstudies.56.4.714}}</ref> Much of this was drawn from her own experiences and knowledge and she used this to critique other ideas and organisations. This led to her writing being viewed as authentic and wise but not too obviously opinionated. Evans also focused on the business side of the Review with attempts to change its layout and design.<ref name="Dillane">{{cite book |last1=Dillane |first1=Fionnuala |title=Before George Eliot: Marian Evans and the Periodical Press |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, UK |isbn=978-1-10703565-2}}</ref> Although Chapman was officially the editor, it was Evans who did most of the work of producing the journal, contributing many essays and reviews beginning with the January 1852 issue and continuing until the end of her employment at the ''Review'' in the first half of 1854.<ref>Ashton, Rosemary. ''George Eliot: A Life''. London: Penguin, 1997. 88ff. [110].</ref> Eliot sympathized with the [[1848 Revolutions]] throughout continental Europe, and even hoped that the Italians would chase the "odious Austrians" out of [[Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia|Lombardy]] and that "decayed monarchs" would be pensioned off, although she believed a gradual reformist approach to social problems was best for England.<ref name="Fleishman" /><ref name="June" />

In 1850–51, Evans attended classes in mathematics at the Ladies College in Bedford Square, later known as [[Bedford College, London]].<ref>[https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/institutions/ladies_college.htm Ladies College] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181025004201/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-project/institutions/ladies_college.htm |date=25 October 2018 }} UCL Bloomsbury Project</ref>

=== Relationship with George Henry Lewes ===
[[File:George Eliot by Samuel Laurence.jpg|thumb|Portrait of George Eliot by [[Samuel Laurence]], c. 1860]]

The philosopher and critic [[George Henry Lewes]] (1817–1878) met Evans in 1851, and by 1854 they had decided to live together. Lewes was already married to Agnes Jervis, although in an [[open marriage]]. In addition to the three children they had together, Agnes also had four children by [[Thornton Leigh Hunt]].<ref>{{cite book|last= Henry|first= Nancy|title= The Cambridge Introduction to George Eliot|year= 2008|publisher= Cambridge|location= Cambridge|page=6}}</ref>  In July 1854, Lewes and Evans travelled to [[Weimar]] and Berlin together for the purpose of research. Before going to Germany, Evans continued her theological work with a translation of Feuerbach's ''[[The Essence of Christianity]]'', and while abroad she wrote essays and worked on her translation of [[Baruch Spinoza]]'s ''[[Ethics (Spinoza)|Ethics]]'', which she completed in 1856, but which was not published in her lifetime because the prospective publisher refused to pay the requested £75.<ref>Hughes, Kathryn, ''George Eliot: The Last Victorian'', p. 168.</ref> In 1981, Eliot's translation of Spinoza's ''Ethics'' was finally published by Thomas Deegan, and was determined to be in the public domain in 2018 and published by the ''George Eliot Archive''.<ref>{{cite web |last=de Spinoza |first=Benedict |orig-year=1981 |year=2018 |title=The Ethics of Benedict de Spinoza, Translated by George Eliot |url=https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/321 |access-date=12 June 2022 |website=The George Eliot Archive}}</ref> It has been re-published in 2020 by Princeton University Press.<ref name="carlisle">{{cite book |last1=Spinoza |first1=Benedictus de |url=https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691193236/spinozas-ethics |title=Spinoza's Ethics |date= 2020 |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0691193236 |editor-last=Carlisle |editor-first=Clare |translator-last=Eliot |translator-first=George}}</ref>

The trip to Germany also served as a honeymoon for Evans and Lewes, who subsequently considered themselves married. Evans began to refer to Lewes as her husband and to sign her name as Mary Ann Evans Lewes, legally changing her name to Mary Ann Evans Lewes after his death.<ref>{{cite book|title=George Eliot: A Biography|last=Haight|first=Gordon S.|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1968|location=New York|page=523}}</ref> The refusal to conceal the relationship was contrary to the social conventions of the time, and attracted considerable disapproval.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}

=== Career in fiction ===

[[File:George Eliot BNF Gallica.jpg|thumb|Photograph ([[:en:albumen print|albumen print]]) of George Eliot, c. 1865]]

While continuing to contribute pieces to the ''Westminster Review'', Evans resolved to become a novelist, and set out a pertinent manifesto in one of her last essays for the ''Review'', "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists"<ref>[https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/silly-novels-by-lady-novelists-essay-by-george-eliot "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170405223439/http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/silly-novels-by-lady-novelists-essay-by-george-eliot |date=5 April 2017 }} text from ''The Westminster Review'' Vol. 66 old series, Vol. 10 new series (October 1856): 442–461.</ref> (1856). The essay criticised the trivial and ridiculous plots of contemporary fiction written by women. In other essays, she praised the [[realism (arts)|realism]] of novels that were being written in Europe at the time,  an emphasis on realistic storytelling confirmed in her own subsequent fiction. She also adopted a nom-de-plume, George Eliot; as she explained to her biographer J. W. Cross, George was Lewes's forename, and Eliot was "a good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word".<ref>Cross (1885), vol 1, p. 431</ref> Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she wanted to escape the stereotype of women's writing being limited to lighthearted romances or other lighter fare not to be taken very seriously.<ref>There were a few exceptions, such as ''[[Nature and Art]]'', by [[Elizabeth Inchbald]], published under the name "Mrs. Inchbald" in 1796.</ref> She also wanted to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as a translator, editor, and critic. Another factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny, thus avoiding the scandal that would have arisen because of her relationship with Lewes, who was married.<ref>Karl, Frederick R. ''George Eliot: Voice of a Century''. Norton, 1995. pp. 237–238.</ref>

In 1857, when she was 37 years of age, "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton", the first of the three stories included in ''[[Scenes of Clerical Life]]'', and the first work of "George Eliot", was published in ''[[Blackwood's Magazine]]''.<ref name=EB1911>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Eliot, George |volume=9 |pages=275–277 |first=Pearl Mary Teresa |last=Craigie |authorlink=John Oliver Hobbes}}</ref> ''The Scenes'' (published as a 2-volume book in 1858),<ref name=EB1911/> was well received, and was widely believed to have been written by a country [[parson]], or perhaps the wife of a parson.

Eliot was profoundly influenced by the works of [[Thomas Carlyle]]. As early as 1841, she referred to him as "a grand favourite of mine", and references to him abound in her letters from the 1840s and 1850s. According to [[University of Victoria]] professor Lisa Surridge, Carlyle "stimulated Eliot's interest in German thought, encouraged her turn from Christian orthodoxy, and shaped her ideas on work, duty, sympathy, and the evolution of the self."<ref>{{cite book |last=Surridge |first=Lisa |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8Nvdx-4-CzoC |title=The Carlyle Encyclopedia |publisher=[[Fairleigh Dickinson University Press]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8386-3792-0 |editor-last=Cumming |editor-first=Mark |location=Madison and Teaneck, NJ |pages=141–144 |chapter=Eliot, George |url-access=limited}}</ref> These themes made their way into Evans's first complete novel, ''[[Adam Bede]]'' (1859).<ref name="EB1911" /> It was an instant success, and prompted yet more intense curiosity as to the author's identity: there was even a pretender to the authorship, one Joseph Liggins. This public interest subsequently led to Mary Anne Evans Lewes's acknowledgment that it was she who stood behind the pseudonym George Eliot. ''Adam Bede'' is known for embracing a realist aesthetic inspired by Dutch visual art.<ref name="Dutch">Rebecca Ruth Gould, "Adam Bede's Dutch Realism and the Novelist's Point of View," ''Philosophy and Literature'' 36:2 (October 2012), 404–423.</ref>

The revelations about Eliot's private life surprised and shocked many of her admiring readers, but this did not affect her popularity as a novelist. Her relationship with Lewes afforded her the encouragement and stability she needed to write fiction, but it would be some time before the couple were accepted into polite society. Acceptance was finally confirmed in 1877 when they were introduced to [[Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll|Princess Louise]], the daughter of [[Queen Victoria]]. The queen herself was an avid reader of all of Eliot's novels and was so impressed with ''Adam Bede'' that she commissioned the artist [[Edward Henry Corbould]] to paint scenes from the book.<ref name = DNB>[https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/6794 Rosemary Ashton, "Evans, Marian &#91;George Eliot&#93; (1819–1880)"], (Later Works) ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004</ref>

[[File:George Eliot 31 Wimbledon Park Road blue plaque.jpg|thumb|Blue plaque, Holly Lodge, 31 Wimbledon Park Road, London]]

When the [[American Civil War]] [[Battle of Fort Sumter|broke out]] in 1861, Eliot expressed sympathy for the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] cause, something which historians have attributed to her [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|abolitionist]] sympathies.<ref name="Fleishman">{{cite book |last1=Fleishman |first1=Avrom |title=George Eliot's Intellectual Life |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=140–142}}</ref><ref name="June">{{cite book |last1=Szirotny |first1=June |title=George Eliot's Feminism: The Right to Rebellion |date=2015 |publisher=Springer |pages=26–28}}</ref> In 1868, she supported philosopher [[Richard Congreve]]'s protests against [[Government of the United Kingdom|governmental]] policies in [[History of Ireland (1801–1923)|Ireland]] and had a positive view of the growing movement in support of [[Irish Home Rule movement|Irish home rule]].<ref name="Fleishman" /><ref name="June" />

She was influenced by the writings of [[John Stuart Mill]] and read all of his major works as they were published.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fleishman |first1=Avrom |title=George Eliot's Intellectual Life |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=59}}</ref> In Mill's ''[[The Subjection of Women]]'' (1869)  she judged the second chapter excoriating the laws which oppress married women "excellent."<ref name="June" /> She was supportive of Mill's parliamentary run, but believed that the electorate was unlikely to vote for a philosopher and was surprised when he won.<ref name="Fleishman" /> While Mill served in parliament, she expressed her agreement with his efforts on behalf of female suffrage, being "inclined to hope for much good from the serious presentation of women's claims before Parliament."<ref name="Newton">{{cite book |last1=Newton |first1=K. M. |title=George Eliot for the Twenty-First Century: Literature, Philosophy, Politics |date=2018 |publisher=Springer |pages=23–24}}</ref> In a letter to [[John Morley]], she declared her support for plans "which held out reasonable promise of tending to establish as far as possible an equivalence of advantage for the two sexes, as to education and the possibilities of free development", and dismissed [[appeal to nature|appeals to nature]] in explaining women's lower status.<ref name="Newton" /><ref name="June" /> In 1870, she responded enthusiastically to [[Katharine Russell, Viscountess Amberley|Lady Amberley]]'s feminist lecture on the claims of women for education, occupations, equality in marriage, and child custody.<ref name="June" /> It would be wrong to assume that the female protagonists of her works can be considered "feminist", with the sole exception perhaps of [[Romola|Romola de' Bardi]], who resolutely rejects the State and Church obligations of her time.<ref>Sanders, Andrew ''The Short Oxford History of English Literature''. Clarendon Press, 1994. p. 442</ref>

After the success of ''Adam Bede'', Eliot continued to write popular novels for the next fifteen years. Within a year of completing ''Adam Bede'', she finished ''[[The Mill on the Floss]]'', dedicating the manuscript: "To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewes, I give this MS. of my third book, written in the sixth year of our life together, at Holly Lodge, South Field, Wandsworth, and finished 21 March 1860."  ''[[Silas Marner]]'' (1861) and ''[[Romola]]'' (1863) soon followed, and later ''[[Felix Holt, the Radical]]'' (1866) and her most acclaimed novel, ''[[Middlemarch]]'' (1871–1872). Her last novel was ''[[Daniel Deronda]]'', published in 1876, after which she and Lewes moved to [[Witley]], Surrey. By this time Lewes's health was failing, and he died two years later, on 30 November 1878. Eliot spent the next six months editing Lewes's final work, ''Life and Mind'', for publication, and found solace and companionship with longtime friend and financial adviser John Walter Cross, a Scottish commission agent<ref>1881 census</ref> 20 years her junior, whose mother had recently died.

=== Marriage to John Cross and death ===
[[File:Highgate Cemetery - East - George Eliot 01.jpg|thumb|upright|Eliot's grave in [[Highgate Cemetery]]]]

On 16 May 1880, eighteen months after Lewes' death, Eliot married John Walter Cross (1840–1924)<ref name="DNB" /> and again changed her name, this time to Mary Ann Cross. While the marriage courted some controversy due to the 21 year age differences, it pleased her brother Isaac that she was married in this relationship. He had broken off relations with her when she had begun to live with Lewes, and now sent congratulations. While the couple were honeymooning in [[Venice]], Cross, in a suicide attempt, jumped from the hotel balcony into the [[Grand Canal (Venice)|Grand Canal]]. He survived, and the newlyweds returned to England. They moved to a new house in Chelsea, but Eliot fell ill with a throat infection. This, coupled with the [[kidney disease]] with which she had been afflicted for several years, led to her death on 22 December 1880 at the age of 61.<ref name=":0">{{cite web| url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/eliot_george.shtml| title = George Eliot
| date = 15 October 2009| access-date =30 December 2009| work=BBC History}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter= George Eliot (Obituary Notice, Friday, December 24, 1880) |title= Eminent Persons: Biographies reprinted from the Times|year=1893 |publisher=Macmillan and Co. |place=London |pages=232–239 |volume= II (1876–1881)|hdl= 2027/osu.32435022453492?urlappend=%3Bseq=246}}</ref>

Due to her denial of the Christian faith and her relationship with Lewes,<ref>{{cite book |last=Henry |first=Nancy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HscXVYCfkNMC |title=The Cambridge Introduction to George Eliot |date=7 April 2008 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-46968-5 |page=13 |quote=Cross soon found that because of her agnosticism and her irregular relationship with Lewes, Eliot was not entitled to the burial in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner that befitted her position as the greatest of Victorian novelists.}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite web |last=Barrett |first=Charlotte |date=2 July 2012 |title=George Eliot |url=http://writersinspire.org/content/george-eliot-0 |url-status=live |access-date=2 March 2025 |website=University of Oxford |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250119030031/http://writersinspire.org/content/george-eliot-0 |archive-date=19 January 2025}}</ref> Eliot was not buried in [[Westminster Abbey]]. She was instead interred in [[Highgate Cemetery]] (East), Highgate, London, in the area reserved for political and religious dissenters and agnostics, beside the love of her life, [[George Henry Lewes]].{{efn|While the biographical consensus is that Lewes and Eliot had a perfect partnership, this view has been somewhat modified by Beverley Park Rilett, who argued in 2013 and 2017 that Lewes's protective love may have amounted to coercive control.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rilett |first1=Beverley Park |title=The role of George Henry Lewes in George Eliot's career: A reconsideration |journal=George Eliot–George Henry Lewes Studies |date=2017 |volume=69 |issue=1 |pages=2–34 |doi=10.5325/georelioghlstud.69.1.0002 |url=https://georgeeliotscholars.org/items/show/314 |access-date=23 August 2021}}</ref>}} The graves of [[Karl Marx]] and her friend Herbert Spencer are nearby.<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3rd ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 14016). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref> In 1980, on the centenary of her death, a memorial stone was established for her in the [[Poets' Corner]] between [[W. H. Auden]] and [[Dylan Thomas]], with a quote from ''Scenes of Clerical Life'': "The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second something to reverence".

=== Personal appearance ===
George Eliot was considered by contemporaries to be physically unattractive; she herself knew this and made jokes about her appearance in letters to friends.<ref name=Mead>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/george-eliots-ugly-beauty |title=George Eliot's Ugly Beauty |date=19 September 2013 |first=Rebecca |last=Mead |magazine=[[The New Yorker]]}}</ref> Despite this, numerous acquaintances found that the force of her personality overcame their impression of her appearance.<ref name=Mead/> Of his first meeting with her on 9 May 1869, [[Henry James]] wrote:
<blockquote>
... To begin with she is magnificently ugly — deliciously hideous. She has a low forehead, a dull grey eye, a vast pendulous nose, a huge mouth, full of uneven teeth & a chin & jawbone ''qui n'en finissent pas'' ["which never end"] ... Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes steals forth & charms the mind, so that you end as I ended, in falling in love with her.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://19.bbk.ac.uk/article/id/1919/print/ |title=Henry James Visits the Priory |first=Rosemary |last=Ashton |authorlink=Rosemary Ashton |journal=19|date=20 March 2020 |issue=29 |doi=10.16995/ntn.1919 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
</blockquote>

=== Spelling of her name ===

She spelled her name differently at different times. Mary Anne was the spelling used by her father for the baptismal record and she uses this spelling in her earliest letters. Within her family, however, it was spelled Mary Ann. By 1852, she had changed to Marian,<ref>Hardy, Barbara. ''George Eliot: A Critic's Biography''. Continuum. London: 2006, pp. 1–2, 8.</ref> but she reverted to Mary Ann in 1880 after she married John Cross.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/collections/projects/eliot/middlemarch/bio.html |title=George Eliot: Biography |access-date=24 August 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090823054834/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/collections/projects/eliot/middlemarch/bio.html#mary |archive-date=23 August 2009 }}</ref> Her memorial stone reads<ref>{{cite web |last1=Banerjee |first1=Jacqueline |title=George Eliot's grave: Highgate Cemetery, London |url=https://victorianweb.org/sculpture/funerary/208.html |website=The Victorian Web |access-date=21 August 2023 |date=29 July 2017}}</ref> {{blockquote|Here lies the body of<br/>'George Eliot'<br/>Mary Ann Cross}}