George Eliot George Eliot Mary Anne Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Ann or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels, including "Adam Bede" (1859), "The Mill on the Floss" (1860), "Silas Marner" (1861), "Romola" (1862–63), "Middlemarch" (1871–72), and "Daniel Deronda" (1876), most of which are set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight. Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she wanted to escape the stereotype
Mary Ann Cotton has been found in the records and this may be the real name of Mary Ann Cotton's alleged lover. Frederick Jr. died in March 1872 and the infant Robert soon after. Then Nattrass became ill with gastric fever and died just after revising his will in Mary Ann's favour. The insurance policy Mary Ann had taken out on (the still living) Charles' life still awaited collection. Mary Ann's downfall came when she was asked by a parish official, Thomas Riley, to help nurse a woman who was ill with smallpox. She complained that the last surviving Cotton boy, Charles Edward,