Daniel Deronda

The setting for this novel moves away from George Eliot’s familiar territory of Midland villages to cosmopolitan London. Daniel Deronda is the adopted son of Sir Hugh Mallinger, a very wealthy man, and the novel moves in these aristocratic circles. The novel features two central characters whose lives intersect: Deronda, a highly intelligent man who nevertheless struggles to find his place in a society where he is something of an outsider and Gwendolyn Harleth, a self-centred, shallow but fascinating character who frequently takes centre stage in this novel. The novel takes on complex themes with many mid-Victorian concerns about religion, philosophy, mysticism, science, materialism and the role of Jewish people in English society.

Daniel Deronda, was published in 1876 and was Eliot’s last novel. It is a complex creation but well up to Eliot’s writing standards.