George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann (later Marian) Evans, who was born in a country house at Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in 1819. The plains and hedges of her native region furnish the setting of many of her novels, including Silas Marner. With her sister, Evans attended two boarding schools for girls, where she was strongly influenced by evangelical Christianity. Miss Lewis, the principal of the second of these schools, was especially influential with her, and it was here that Mary Ann adopted the religious devotion and self-repression that dominated her youth.
Following the death of her mother and her sister's marriage in 1837, Evans took charge of her father's household. In 1841, they moved to a house near Coventry. As she matured, Evans’ religious beliefs changed, and friends whom she met here further shook her faith in Christianity. She soon decided that she could no longer attend church in good faith. Her father refused to live with her on those terms, and she went to her brother for three weeks. A reconciliation was arranged by her brother and her friends, and she agreed to resume church attendance and returned to her father. Nevertheless, her renunciation of all religious dogma was complete, and she remained agnostic until her death.
