Mary Ann Evans, also known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. The crossword solution for her is EVANS, a five-letter word. Mary Ann Evans was born in Warwickshire, England in 1819 and adopted the pen name George Eliot in order to be taken seriously as a female writer. She wrote seven novels, including Middlemarch, which is considered to be her masterpiece.