The vividness with which scenes and persons about her childhood home were
depicted, speedily led to the breaking of this disguise. One of her
school-fellows, as soon as she had read _Adam Bede_, said, "George Eliot
is Marian Evans;" but others were only confident that the author must be
some Nuncaton resident, and began to look about them for the author. Some
portions of the _Scenes of Clerical Life_ had already been discovered to
have a very strong local coloring, and now there was much curiosity as to
the personality of the writer. A dilapidated gentleman of the neighborhood,
who had run through with a fortune at Cambridge, was selected for the
honor. While the _Scenes_ were being published, an Isle of Man newspaper
attributed the authorship to this man, whose name was Liggins, but he at
once repudiated it. On the appearance of _Adam Bede_ this claim was again
put forward, and a local clergyman became the medium of its announcement
to the public. The London _Times_ printed the following letter in its issue
of April 15, 1859: "Sir,--The author of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ and _Adam
Bede_ is Mr. Joseph Liggins, of Nuncaton, Warwickshire. You may easily
satisfy yourself of my correctness by inquiring of any one in that
neighborhood. Mr. Liggins himself and the characters whom he paints are
as familiar there as the twin spires of Coventry.--Yours obediently,
H. ANDERS, Rector of Kirkby."

The next day the following was printed by the same paper:--

Sir,--The Rev. H. Anders has with questionable delicacy and
unquestionable inaccuracy assured the world through your columns that
the author of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ and _Adam Bede_ is Mr. Joseph
Liggins, of Nuncaton. I beg distinctly to deny that statement. I
declare on my honor that that gentleman never saw a line of those works
until they were printed, nor had he any knowledge of them whatever.
Allow me to ask whether the act of publishing a book deprives a man of