Cover to Cover celebrates National Authors Day today remembering English author George Eliot (1819-1880). Born Mary Ann Evans, it is thought Eliot chose to write under a male pen name to ensure her works would be taken seriously and to have her fiction judged separately from her extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives, in the Day 2 collections, has a 25 volume, limited edition set which includes all of Eliot’s works. Eliot is pictured below, at age 30, in a portrait painted by Swiss artist Franҫois d’Albert Durade.
Middlemarch, one of seven novels written by Eliot, was originally met with mixed reviews from Victorian critics but over time has grown to be regarded as her best work and one of the greatest novels written in English. Eliot’s other novels include Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, and Daniel Deronda.