Mary Anne Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was a leading Victorian novelist born in 1822 and died in 1880. She wrote seven major novels including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871-72), and Daniel Deronda (1876). Adam Bede tells the story of Hetty Sorrel's downfall and her relationships with Adam, a local carpenter, Arthur, a young soldier, and Dinah, a Methodist preacher. It was praised for its realistic portrayal of rural life and characters.