George Eliot Part II

After the trip to Switzerland Marian came back to London and began to seek work as a writer and journalist. It was very unusual work for a woman but she was highly intelligent,well read and educated.  She moved into the home of Chapman - a radical publisher… and began to write. She supported revolution in Europe as did most radicals of the time, though she did favour a more gradualist reform movement, in England.

She fell in love with Chapman, but he already had a wife and a mistress and wasn’t interested. She wrote for the Westminster Review and continued her reading and studies.  Then she fell in love with George Lewes, a novelist and journalist... who was also married. He and his wife Agnes had agreed to an open marriage.  However over time, Agnes had become very seriously involved with Thornton Leigh Hunt a newspaper editor and the son of the famous literary critic Leigh Hunt.   Lewes was unhappy with the affair..
 Over time, Agnes had produced 3 children by her lover, and because Lewes had tolerated her adultery, he was unable to get a divorce when he had grown apart from her and wanted to end the marriage. 

So Marian and Lewes were not able to marry.  It was a sacrifice for her, to accept being his mistress, but they decided to openly live together and referred to each other as husband and wife.  Literary men and upper class men had traditionally had mistresses but they usually did not live with them publicly or treat them as if they were married...

Lewes was devoted to her and much more supportive than many men would have been. He encouraged her to write fiction.  She was in her late 30s when she wrote her first novel….She published it anonymously… then wrote another Novel, Adam Bede, with the pen name George Eliot…Adam Bede was a great success and was enjoyed even by the queen….