'George Eliot' was the pseudonym of Marian Evans (1819-80), possibly the greatest of the Victorian novelists, whose works include The Mill on the Floss (1860), Middlemarch (1871-2) and Daniel Deronda (1876). Her personal life was complex - she was an independent woman who challenged social conventions. Her friend, Eton master and historian Oscar Browning (1837-1923), was moved to write this affectionate assessment of her life, and it was published...