George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans at five o'clock in the morning of St. Cecilia's Day, 22 November 1819, at South Farm, Arbury, Warwickshire. Her father was Robert Evans (b. 1773) and her mother was his second wife, Christiana Pearson (b. ca. 1788), whom he had married in 1813. Mary Ann had a half brother, Robert (b. 1802); a half sister, Frances (b. 1805), called Fanny; a sister, Christiana (b. 1814), called Chrissey; and a brother, Isaac (b. 1816), who was to be the most important sibling in her life. George Eliot described her father as a man who "raised himself from being an artisan to be a man whose extensive knowledge in very varied practical departments made his services valued through several counties. He had a large knowledge of buildings, of mines, of plantations, of various branches of valuation and measurement--of all that is essential to the management of large estates." These varied activities are telescoped in the word "business" which Caleb Garth, an idealized version of Robert Evans, uses to describe his work in Middlemarch. The Pearson family was considered socially superior to the Evans family, and Robert was thought to have done well in marrying Christiana four years after the death of his first wife, Harriet Poynton, in 1809.
This is a free page. This page contains 180 words. This
biography contains 14,071 words (approx. 47 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our George Eliot Access Pass.
