How did George Eliot draw on her early life in The Mill on the Floss?

In The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot drew directly upon the scenes and experiences of her early life in Warwickshire, England.12

While the novel is celebrated for its remarkable and psychologically subtle portrayal of childhood, the text specifically notes that Eliot returned to the settings of her own upbringing to craft the narrative. This practice of utilizing personal history and local observation was a hallmark of her writing process, which she had previously employed in works like Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede, where she incorporated local events and the speech patterns of her own family members. By grounding the first half of The Mill on the Floss in these authentic early memories, Eliot achieved a level of realism and emotional resonance that became central to her literary legacy.1