George Eliot

Daniel Deronda George Eliot

Daniel Deronda is a novel by George Eliot, first published in 1876. It was the last novel she completed and the only one set in the contemporary Victorian society of her day. Its mixture of social satire and moral searching, along with a sympathetic featuring of Jewish Kabbalistic ideas, has made it a controversial final statement of one of the greatest of Victorian novelists. Daniel finds himself attracted to, but wary of, the beautiful, stubborn, and selfish Gwendolen, whom he sees losing all her winnings in a game of roulette. The next day, Gwendolen receives a letter from her mother telling her that the family is financially ruined and asking her to come home. In despair at losing all her money, Gwendolen pawns a necklace and debates gambling again to make her fortune. In a fateful moment, however, her necklace is returned to her by a porter, and she realises that Daniel saw her pawn the necklace and redeemed it for her. The plot revolves around their passion and an exotic grandeur that is strange and uniquely unsettling. The novel has been adapted for film three times, and twice for television. It has also been adapted for the stage, most notably in the 1960s by the 69 Theatre Company in Manchester with Vanessa Redgrave cast as the heroine Gwendolen Harleth. The novel appeared as Number 28 on The Guardian's list of the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time.