George Eliot is the pen name for Mary Ann Evans, who was one of the leading novelists of the Victorian era. She also worked as a journalist and translator. Born in 1819 in Warwickshire, England, Mary wrote 7 novels under that name George Eliot. Most of them set in early provincial England and were well known for being psychologically insightful and realistic. Her use of a pen name has been speculated as being a way for her work to be taken seriously, as well as to separate her fictional work from her editorial writing. Her personal life was filled with its own controversy and hardships, which likely was a large influence on her fiction work. She was a smart woman with strong opinions on politics and social life and her writing, whether fiction or not, reflected this. Her writing is touted as some of the best literary work in the English language, with Middlemarch being suggested as the best. Her work is definitely something to be enjoyed by readers for ages to come.Since the death of George Eliot much public curiosity has been excited by the repeated allusions to, and quotations from, her contributions to periodical literature, and a leading newspaper gives expression to a general wish when it says that "this series of striking essays ought to be collected and reprinted, both because of substantive worth and because of the light they throw on the author's literary canons and predilections."This book is a complete collection of George Eliot's essays.