George Eliot, née Marian Evans, was born before her time; a liberated woman and an agnostic in the sexually repressive and pious Victorian era, Eliot has long been a favorite of modern feminist critics. Biographer Rosemary Ashton also admires Eliot's independence and her refusal to bend to the mores of the society and age in which she lived, but in George Eliot: A Life she proves that Eliot was more a product of her time than some might think. Though Eliot was unconventional enough to enter into a series of sexual relationships without benefit of marriage, her choice of men was curiously traditional, illustrated by her attraction to George Lewes, a man several years her senior who loved her, protected her, bolstered her ego, and managed her affairs.Though Eliot's sexual liaisons are certainly interesting, Ashton, a thorough researcher and perceptive critic, also delves into Eliot's novels, analyzing them in light of the social and intellectual milieu in which they were written; this milieu forms one of the most fascinating aspects of Ashton's biography: Victorian intellectuals' struggle to find an alternative to Christian orthodoxy in a time when science and philosophy were exploding long-held religious beliefs. From the details of George Eliot's personal life to the attitudes of the society in which she lived, Rosemary Ashton has done a fine job of conveying not only a life but an entire world.