Daniel Deronda

Description

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.