George Eliot was born Mary Ann (Marian) Evans in 1819. After her mother died in 1836, Marian was her father's housekeeper, educating herself in her spare time. After moving to Coventry in 1841 she met progressive intellectuals and became managing editor of the Westminster Review in 1851. She lost her Christian faith and was alienated from her family, moving to London where she met the separated George Henry Lewes. They lived together until his death in 1878. During those years she wrote the fiction, journalism and philosophy she is remembered for under the pseudonym of George Eliot. Terence Cave is Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St John's College. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy. His publications include The Cornucopian Text: Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance.