Editing George Eliot (section)

=== 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>