George Eliot was born on 22 November 1819 to Robert and Christiana Evans (nee Pearson). She had an older brother (Isaac) and older sister (Christiana) as well as and older half-brother (Robert) and an older half-sister (Fanny) from her father's previous marriage to Harriet Poynton. Her mother also gave birth to twin boys, although they died soon after being born.
Her father, Robert, was manager of the Arbury Hall estate for the Newdigate family in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, which greatly aided her self-learning a she had access to the well-stocked library with the country house. Her father also invested in an education for her between the ages of five to sixteen.
In 1836, the death of her mother resulted in her taking over the household duties until her brother, Isaac, took over the family home four years later. She and her father relocated to Foleshill in Coventry where she met wealthy businessman and philanthropist Charles Bray and his wife Caroline (Cara). The Bray household brought together many radical and free-thinkers of the time and it was these influences that probably led to her losing her Christian faith. Her father was not pleased about this but they continued to live and go to church together until his death in 1849. Also, during this time, she completed her first literary work: a translation of David Strauss' Life of Jesus into English.
Following her father's funeral, George Eliot visited Switzerland with the Brays and decided to stay in Geneva until the following year when she returned to England and took up residence in London, determined to become a writer.
She stayed at the home of radical publisher, John Chapman, whom she had met through the Brays and in 1851, George Eliot became assistant editor of The Westminster Review, Chapman's quarterly liberal journal. She continued in this post until 1854.
It was during this time that she met philosopher and critic, George Henry Lewes and by 1854 they were living together, despite the fact he was married to Agnes Jarvis (although they had mutually agreed to have an open marriage because they could not divorce). It was in this year that George Eliot and George Lewes went travelling to Weimar and Berlin for what they described as their "Honeymoon". Here, she continued her theological interests by translating Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity and Baruch Spinoza's Ethics into English.
In 1858, Blackwood Magazine published George Eliot's Scenes of a Clerical Life, a series of three short stories (each printed separately). They were very well received by Blackwood's readership, which encouraged her to complete and publish her first novel, Adam Bede the following year. Adam Bede became an instant hit in Victorian society and questions started to be asked as to the identity of this new author. Eventually, George Eliot revealed her identity.
Over the next 19 years, she published another six novels as well as a number of poems and short stories. In 1876, following the publication of her final novel, Daniel Deronda, she relocated to Witley, Surrey with her "husband", who died two years later in 1878.
In 1880, she legally married John Walter Cross, an American banker who was twenty years her junior. The two of them moved to Chelsea, however a throat infection, coupled with long term kidney failure resulted in her death on 22 December 1880, aged 61. She was buried in Highgate Cemetary next to her long-term partner, George Henry Lewes (he renouncement of Christianity and adulterous relationship prevented her from being buried at Westminster Abbey).