Andrea relied heavily upon an article entitled ‘Real Life in George Eliot’s Novels’ from the New Outlook magazine, published in 1907, and authored by Charles S. Olcott, during her lecture and presentation. She began with a slide depicting an old black-and-white photograph of the Old Red Mill near Asbury, believed to be the inspiration for Dorlcote Mill. Her second slide include a quote from the magazine article: “George Eliot’s contribution to history lies in the fact that she has given the best picture to be found in all literature of English provincial life in the reign of Queen Victoria.” Andrea opined that The Mill on the Floss was the quintessential Victorian novel.
Her next slide was jam packed with biographical information about Mary Ann Evans, who wrote anonymously under the pseudonym George Eliot. I’ll briefly recap (but please follow the links above for more complete facts about her). Born in 1819 on South Farm, Arbury Estate, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire as Mary Ann Evans. Sent away to Miss Willington’s school at Nuneaton. Her mother died in 1836, when she was just seventeen, after which she became her father’s housekeeper. In 1841, she moved to Coventry, where she received a commission to translate (from German to English) Strauss‘ Life of Jesus. This caused some controversy, since the book was the first of it’s kind to look at the historical Jesus. During her stay at Coventry, she also acted as the unpaid editor of the Westminster Review, a radical periodical which supported woman’s suffrage. But the final straw for her family came when she fell in love with a married man (George Henry Lewis) and chose to live with him.
Andrea took a few moments to explain the situation surrounding Lewis’ marriage. His wife had an affair, which resulted in offspring. He adopted those children, which prevented him from divorcing his wife (apparently, a vagary of Victorian law). He did not live with his wife after adopting the children. Mary Ann moves in with him after all this has occurred, and she is shunned by her family and the public for it. Regardless, George inspired her to being writing fiction and from her formidable memory of her childhood she crafts three novels in rapid succession in just a couple of years: Scenes from Clerical Life (1858); Adam Bede (1859); and, The Mill on the Floss (1860).
She lived with Lewis for nearly twenty years, until his death in 1878. Just two years later she married J.W. Cross, but lasted only two months until her death in December 1880.
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