New Delhi, May 25 -- Few writers in English literature captured the emotional depth of human relationships as profoundly as George Eliot, whose words on companionship remain among the most quoted passages in Victorian fiction.

Born Mary Ann Evans in Warwickshire, England, in 1819, Eliot emerged as one of the defining literary voices of the Victorian era. Before establishing herself as a novelist, she worked extensively as a translator, editor and literary critic. Adopting the male pen name George Eliot allowed her work to be judged more seriously in a literary culture that often dismissed women writers. Her major works - including Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda - helped shape the psychologi...