Mary Ann Evans was born on the 22nd of November 1819 at South Farm, part of the Arbury Hall estate in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Her father Robert managed the estate while her mother Christiana came from a local mill-owning family.
George Eliot completed an English translation of David Strauss's Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet titled The Life of Jesus Critically Examined in 1846. She continued translating philosophical texts including Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity published in 1854 and Baruch Spinoza's Ethics which she finished in 1856 though publishers refused to release it during her lifetime.
George Henry Lewes met Mary Ann Evans in 1851 and by 1854 they decided to cohabit as partners despite his existing marriage to Agnes Jervis. The couple lived openly together for twenty-four years until Lewes died aged sixty-one following declining health.
Middlemarch finished 1871-1872 is considered the most acclaimed novel ever written by English language critics like Virginia Woolf calling it few books suitable grown-up people readership. Time magazine poll 2007 voted tenth greatest literary work ever written while international voters selected first British novel landslide victory 2015 outside United Kingdom borders.
Her burial took place at Highgate Cemetery East London area reserved political religious dissenters agnostics beside love George Henry Lewes nearby graves Karl Marx Herbert Spencer friend located.