Mary Ann Evan's finished her formal education five years prior to her first publication. She published a poem "As o'er the Fields," because she had recently been exposed to poetry, especially that of William Wordsworth. The poem was printed in January in the Christian Observer, a Presbyterian family newspaper. This first publication granted Mary Ann the support she needed to continue writing for the rest of her life.

Eliot, George. Middlemarch. edited Gregory Maertz. Broadview Editions. 2004