What was the real name of the author who wrote under the pseudonym George Eliot?
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: Mary Ann Evans
Mary Ann Evans adopted the pen name George Eliot to ensure her works were taken seriously and to distance her writing from the 'silly novels by lady novelists' she critiqued. The pseudonym also helped shield her private life, particularly her relationship with George Henry Lewes, from public scrutiny.
Keep practicing
More George Eliot questions
- Which 1871–1872 novel by George Eliot is frequently described as the greatest 'social panorama' in English literature, subtitled 'A Study o…
- In 'The Mill on the Floss', what are the names of the two siblings whose relationship forms the emotional core of the novel?
- What is the primary psychological affliction of the protagonist in 'Silas Marner' before he finds the golden-haired child, Eppie?
- George Eliot’s 'Adam Bede' is set in which fictional English county, based largely on the author’s memories of Derbyshire and Staffordshire?
- In 'Middlemarch', Dorothea Brooke’s first husband, Edward Casaubon, is obsessed with completing which doomed intellectual project?
- Which of George Eliot’s novels is unique for its setting in 15th-century Florence and its focus on the religious reformer Savonarola?