After years spent as a journal editor, critical essayist and translator of the books of others, Eliot's unoffi- cial husband, George Henry Lewes, encouraged her to try her hand at fiction. In 1857, she first assumed the penname George Eliot, and began to write her first novel, Adam Bede, which was published in 1859. Adam Bede brought Eliot immediate critical acclaim, suggesting to some critics that she posed a challenge in literary accomplishment even to the well-established Charles Dickens. Close on the heals of Adam Bede, Eliot published her second novel The Mill on the Floss in 1860. The following year, her third novel, Silas Marner, was published. Her masterpiece, Middlemarch, was published in 1871-72.

Publishing "The Lifted Veil"

Eliot paused between the publication of Adam Bede and completion of The Mill on the Floss to write her (long) short story, "The Lifted Veil." Blackwood, her publisher, was reluctant...