George Eliot, originally known as Mary Ann Evans and later as Marian Evans, was a British novelist. She was born on November 22, 1819, in Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, England, and died on December 22, 1880, in London. Eliot was brought up in a household that strongly adhered to evangelical devotion, although she diverged from religious orthodoxy in her twenties. She had positions as a translator, a critic, and a subeditor at the Westminster Review from 1851 to 1854. Subsequently, she transitioned to writing fiction. In order to avoid discrimination against female writers, she initially published Scenes of Clerical Life (1858) under a masculine pen name. Subsequently, the author produced renowned literary pieces including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–63), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), and Daniel Deronda (1876). Her magnum opus, Middlemarch (1871–72), offers a comprehensive examination of all strata of provincial society. The psychological analysis method she created would later become a defining feature of contemporary fiction. She had a lengthy and joyful, although scandalous, relationship with George Henry Lewes, who was a journalist, philosopher, and critic. Despite being married, they hosted Sunday-afternoon gatherings that became a notable aspect of Victorian society.