Mary Ann Evans is an English novelist, born in Nuneaton, UK. She chose the masculine name "Eliot" because she wanted to be confident that people would take her work seriously. She published many novels, such as Silas Marner, The Mill on the Floss, and Middlemarch, in addition to a number of poetic works. Daniel Deronda was her last novel, which was published in 1876 before she died in London.