Book description
As Daniel Deronda opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the
roulette-table, prepared to throw away her family fortune. She is
observed by Daniel Deronda, a young man groomed in the finest tradition
of the English upper-classes. And while Gwendolen loses everything and
becomes trapped in an oppressive marriage, Deronda's fortunes take a
different turn. After a dramatic encounter with the young Jewish woman
Mirah, he becomes involved in a search for her lost family and finds
himself drawn into ever-deeper sympathies with Jewish aspirations and
identity. 'I meant everything in the book to be related to everything
else', wrote George Eliot of her last and most ambitious novel, and in
weaving her plot strands together she created a bold and richly textured
picture of British society and the Jewish experience within it.
George Eliot was born Mary Ann (Marian) Evans in 1819. After her
mother died in 1836, Marian was her father's housekeeper, educating
herself in her spare time. After moving to Coventry in 1841 she met
progressive intellectuals and became managing editor of the
Westminster Review in 1851. She lost her Christian faith and was
alienated from her family, moving to London where she met the
separated George Henry Lewes. They lived together until his death in
1878. During those years she wrote the fiction, journalism and
philosophy she is remembered for under the pseudonym of George Eliot.
Terence Cave is Professor of French Literature at the University of
Oxford and Fellow of St John's College. He is also a Fellow of the
British Academy. His publications include The Cornucopian Text:
Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance.
