Classic Eliot novel to be released in own name
Plans for a world visitor centre to be opened in her name
THE MIDLAND’S famed author George Eliot will have her novel Middlemarch published for the first time ever under her real name.
After almost 150 years, Middlemarch is to be published for the first time under George Eliot’s real name, Mary Ann Evans.
It has been chosen as one of 25 historic works by women whose writing has only ever previously been in print under their male names.
Middlemarch is widely believed to be Eliot’s masterpiece and it frequently appears in listings of the world’s greatest novels.
It is being republished as part of the Reclaim Her Name campaign from the Women’s prize for fiction and prize sponsor Baileys, to mark the 25th anniversary of the award.
The news has been celebrated by the George Eliot Fellowship (GEF), who have long championed her works.
They are behind the plans for a world visitor centre in her name – by reconstructing the outbuilding at Griff House in Nuneaton and restore it to how it would have been during Eliot’s childhood.
John Burton sad they were thrilled, especially in view of the fact that this year’s shortlist of writers was ‘very strong’.
Eliot left a huge legacy on her home town – she has a hospital, two schools and a hospice named after her and a pub, as well as being an inspiration for writers across the world.
However, there is so much more to discover about the woman, who used a man’s name to help get her work seen by the wider society.
Mary Ann Evans was born in Nuneaton on November 22, 1819.
She was the third of five children of Robert Evans and Christiana Evans. Her name was sometimes shortened to Marian.
Her father Robert Evans, of Welsh ancestry, was the manager of the Arbury Hall Estate for the Newdigate family, and Mary Ann was born on the estate at South Farm.
In early 1820 the family moved to a home named Griff House, between Nuneaton and Bedworth.
When she was 21, she and her father moved to Foleshill near Coventry.
In 1849, when she was 30, after her father’s funeral, she travelled to Switzerland.
The following year, she moved to London with the intent of becoming a writer and she began referring to herself as Marian Evans.
In 1851 she became the assistant editor of The Westminster Review.
She adopted her now famed nom-de-plume, George Eliot.
In 1857, when she was 37, The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton, the first of the three stories comprising Scenes of Clerical Life, and the first work of Eliot, was published in Blackwood’s Magazine.
The Scenes (published in 1858), was well received and was widely believed to have been written by a country parson, or perhaps the wife of a parson.
Evans’ first complete novel, published in 1859, was Adam Bede.
After the success of Adam Bede, Eliot continued to write popular novels for the next 15 years. Within a year of completing Adam Bede, she finished The Mill on the Floss.
Her last novel was Daniel Deronda, published in 1876.
In a 2007 authors’ poll by TIME, Middlemarch was voted the tenth greatest literary work ever written.
In 2015, writers from outside the UK voted it first among all British novels “by a landslide”.