GEORGE ELIOT

DANIEL DERONDA

Edited with an Introduction by Graham Handley

In Daniel Deronda (1876), George Eliot turned to contemporary English and European life as material for the expression of her own idealism.

Set against a period of emergent nationalism, Daniel Deronda probes the egoism of a spoiled girl and her increasing awareness of conscience through suffering. Gwendolen comes to regard Daniel as her moral and spiritual mentor, but chance, the revelation of his Jewish birth, and his practical and sympathetic identification with his race draw him away from her.

Daniel Deronda is a psychologically incisive investigation, full of George Eliot’s wisdom about human nature and penetrating in its analysis of motive and decision. Its concerns are of it