Editing George Eliot (section)

=== 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>