What was the pen name of novelist, Mary Ann Evans?

The story behind the answer

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, a leading Victorian novelist. She adopted a male pseudonym so her work would be taken seriously in an era when women’s writing was often dismissed as trivial, and to keep her private life (including her partnership with George Henry Lewes) separate from her literary reputation. Under this name, she wrote realist classics such as Middlemarch, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner.

Don’t confuse her with other “Georges”: George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair; George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright; George Saunders is a contemporary American author. Memory tip: Evans and Eliot both start with “E”—Evans becomes Eliot—and “Mary Ann chose a Man’s name: George.”