George Eliot (b. Mary Ann Evans Cross) was born on November 22, 1819 at Arbury Farm, Warwickshire, England. She received an ordinary education and, upon leaving school at the age of sixteen, embarked on a program of independent study to further her intellectual growth. The death of her father in 1849 left her with a small legacy and the freedom to pursue her literary inclinations. In 1851, she became the assistant editor of the Westminster Review, a position she held for three years. Her first book, Scenes of a Clerical Life (1858), was followed by Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), and Middlemarch (1872). On May 6, 1880, she married John Cross, a friend of long standing, and after a brief illness she died on December 22 of that year, in London. Rebecca Mead is a staff writer at the New Yorker. She is the author of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding and My Life in Middlemarch, a widely acclaimed memoir about how Middlemarch has shaped her life.