George Eliot, born Mary Ann Evans in 1819, chose to write under a male pen name for two reasons: She wanted to avoid the stereotype of women’s writing of her day, and sought to protect herself from the scandal of being an unmarried woman living with a married man. Truth, in her personal life, was indeed difficult — but truth was also of vital importance to Eliot, even in her fiction. Her novels, including “Middlemarch” and “Silas Marner,” were a realistic portrayal of life, full of detailed depictions and psychological insight. As she once wrote, “I aspire to give no more than a faithful account of men and things as they have mirrored themselves in my mind.”