Adam Bede deals with some very real and unromantic themes at the turn of the 18 th century in an English village – a love triangle, an unexpected pregnancy, and the murder by a mother of her child.
Her first novel, Adam Bede, is not as well known by most readers but it has been in print ever since it was published in 1859. Any English literature class or book group that has tackled The Mill on the Floss or Middlemarch learns that Eliot’s psychological insight isn’t for every reader or for uncomplicated discussion. It’s no wonder that after that she used the pen name George Eliot instead of her own and the fact that “he is a she” has confused many of us ever since. In 1856 she wrote an essay for a review journal titled “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists”. She had already translated several works into English under her own name and, returning to England, she became a literary editor and reviewer. She soon traveled and lived in Switzerland, further cultivating her worldliness. Mary Anne was given free access to the library where she honed her classical education aided by correspondence with her previous tutors from her younger years.Īfter her father’s death in 1949, Mary Anne (also known as Marian) was 30 years old. Her father Robert Evans managed a large estate with its own library. Mary Anne Evans was thought to be unattractive and not easily married off – so her father saw that his daughter was given an education as a young girl, something not afforded many young women in the 1800s.
The mid-century was several decades before women like authors Jane Austen and Agatha Christie exploded on the literary scene along with Americans Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Women writers in the 1860s were stereotyped as writing light and frivolous romances.
In the middle of the 19 th century, Englishwoman Mary Anne Evans was afraid she wouldn’t be taken seriously as a writer unless she published under a man’s name.
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