George Eliot was a leading writer of Victorian Era in the same league as Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens.
On the first thought, from the name anyone will think that the author is a man. But in reality it is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. From her pen name everyone is likely to think that George Eliot was a man.
She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede, The Mill on the floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, The Radical, Middle March and Daniel Deronda.
Why did she adopted the masculine pen name? She had adopted this name to keep her identity a secret. She was born in the year 1819. In those the society was very conservative. But she lived with a married man without actually marrying him. She even added the name of her companion to her name.
Eliot assured Blackwood her publisher – who was at that time unaware of her true identity – that the pen name was necessary to employ “as a tub to throw to the whale in case of curious enquiries”