She used a male pen name,she said,to ensure her works would be taken seriously.Female authors were published under their own names during Eliot's life,but she wanted to escape the stereotype of women only writinglighthearted romances.An additional factor in her use ofa pen name may have been a desireto shield her private life from public scrutiny andto prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes,with whom she lived for over 20 years.[1] Her 1872 work,Middlemarch,has been described as the greatest novel in the English language by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes.[2][3] Literary assessment Throughout her career,Eliot wrote with a politically astute pen From Adam Bede to The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner. 10: Eliot presented the cases ofsocial outsiders and small-town persecution.Felix Hot,the Radical and The Legend of Jubal were overtly political,and political crisis is at the heart of Middlemarch,in which she presents the stories ofa number of denizens of a small English town on the eve of the Reform BillShe used a male pen name, she said, to ensure her works would be taken seriously. Female authors were published under their own names during Eliot's life, but she wanted to escape the stereotype of women only writing lighthearted romances. An additional factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes, with whom she lived for over 20 years.[1] Her 1872 work, Middlemarch, has been described as the greatest novel in the English language by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes.[2][3] I. Literary assessment Throughout her career, Eliot wrote with a politically astute pen. From Adam Bede to The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner, Eliot presented the cases of social outsiders and small-town persecution. Felix Holt, the Radical and The Legend of Jubal were overtly political, and political crisis is at the heart of Middlemarch, in which she presents the stories of a number of denizens of a small English town on the eve of the Reform Bill 10’