ABSTRACT
In a biography of George Eliot, Kathryn Hughes emphasized that Mary Ann, dubbed the "last Victorian" in the subtitle of her biography, was born in the same year as the future Queen Victoria, marking the time frame of her creative writing. In 1851 and 1852 Mary Ann entered the household of John Chapman in London. The young, dashing Chapman edited the Westminster Review, a leading intellectual quarterly of the day. Recognizing Mary Ann's talent, the editor assigned to her the preparation of essays and book reviews for the journal, which sharpened her writing skills. She apparently had a brief affair with Chapman, whom many thought was the model for Tertius Lydgate, the doctor hero of Middlemarch, before she met George Henry Lewes – a writer, philosopher and naturalist, with whom she eloped to Germany. Between 1858 and 1876 George Eliot published nine highly regarded and avidly read novels, elevating her to celebrity status and making her wealthy.
