In the heart of her hometown of Nuneaton stands a statue of Mary Ann Evans, the novelist, poet, essayist, and journalist, who wrote under the pen-name George Eliot, and was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880) was born in Nuneaton, England. She loved books from a young age, and her parents decided to nurture her education and sent her to various boarding schools. At 16, her mother died, and Evans returned home to assist her father. Five years later, they moved to Coventry, where she befriended the social reformer Charles Bray and began to publish essays in his newspaper. At 30, Evans moved to London and worked as the assistant of the left-wing journalist John Chapman, contributing to his newspaper articles on society and the gap between the classes. At the time, she met the philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes, who motivated her to write. Even though Lewes was married and had children, Lewes and Evans decided to be a couple and considered themselves married. In 1857, at 38, Evans published her first book, Scenes of Clerical Life, a collection of stories set in her childhood surroundings, and many of the sites based on real locations in the town. She published her work using the male pen-name George Eliot to avoid the stereotype of women’s writing and have her work taken seriously. The mysterious author gained popularity, and the curiosity about her true identity grew. In the next 20 years, she published three more books and dozens of poems, essays, and translations. She died at the age of 61. The George Eliot Fellowship commissioned the bronze statue to stand as a memorial to Evans. They chose the sculptor John Letts to create it, and on March 22, 1986, the fellowship’s president Jonathan G. Ouvry, George Henry Lewes’s descendant, unveiled it. Other sites in Nuneaton are related to Evans’s life and work, including the George Eliot Memorial Garden, the Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery, which recreated her drawing room and displays various artifacts and memorabilia of the author, and the George Eliot hotel, renamed in her honor and was mentioned as The Red Lion in the story Janet’s Repentance. Read more...