George Eliot is one of the most celebrated novelists in history. Her books, including Middlemarch , Daniel Deronda, and Adam Bede, are as appreciated now as they were in the nineteenth century. Yet her nonconformist and captivating personal life--a compelling story in itself--is not well known. Ridiculed as an ugly duckling, Eliot violated strict social codes by living with a married man for most of her adult life. Soon after he died, she married...