y, and through Spencer met George Henry Lewes, a miscellaneous writer,
whom she afterwards married.

Under his sympathetic influence she began to write fiction for the
magazines, her first story being "Amos Barton" (1857), which was later
included in the _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858). Her first long novel,
_Adam Bede_, appeared early in 1859 and met with such popular favor that to
the end of her life she despaired of ever again repeating her triumph. But
the unexpected success proved to be an inspiration, and she completed _The
Mill on the Floss_ and began _Silas Marner_ during the following year. Not
until the great success of these works led to an insistent demand to know
the author did the English public learn that it was a woman, and not an
English clergyman, as they supposed, who had suddenly jumped to the front
rank of living writers.

Up to this point George Eliot had confined herself to English country life,
but now she suddenly abandoned the scenes and the people with whom she was
most familiar in order to write an historical novel. It was in 1860, while
traveling in Italy, that she formed "the great project" of _Romola_,--a
mingling of fiction and moral philosophy, against the background of the
mighty Renaissance movement. In this she was writing of things of which she
had no personal knowledge, and the book cost her many months of hard and
depressing labor. She said herself that she was a young woman when she
began the work, and an old woman when she finished it. _Romola_ (1862--
1863) was not successful with the public, and the same may be said of
_Felix Holt the Radical_ (1866) and _The Spanish Gypsy_ (1868). The
last-named work was the result of the author's ambition to write a dramatic
poem which should duplicate the lesson of _Romola_; and for the purpose of
gathering material she visited Spain, which she had decided upon as the
scene of her poetical effort. With the publication of _Middlemarch_
(1871-1872) George Eliot came back again into popular favor, though this
work is less spontaneous, and more labored and pedantic, than her earlier
novels. The fault of too much analysis and moralizing was even more
conspicuous in _Daniei Deronda_ (1876), which she regarded as her greatest
book. Her life during all this time was singularly uneventful, and the
chief milestones along the road mark the publication of her successive
novels.

During all the years of her literary success her husband Lewes had been a