“There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle.”

English novelist, poet, journalist, and translator, Victorian era

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist, poet, journalist, and translator of the Victorian era. She was one of the leading writers of her time. She wrote seven novels, including Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, the Radical, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda. Her fiction is known for realism, psychological depth, a strong sense of place, and close attention to the countryside.