Daniel Deronda.

A brilliant, headstrong young woman gambles away her fortune and marries for security into misery, while a thoughtful young man of uncertain origins begins a search that will lead him far from the English world that raised him.

What it's about

Daniel Deronda interweaves two stories. In one, the beautiful and willful Gwendolen Harleth makes a disastrous marriage and slowly, painfully, awakens to conscience. In the other, the generous Daniel Deronda rescues a young Jewish singer, is drawn into the Jewish community of London, and comes to discover the truth of his own heritage and a sense of larger purpose. Their lives cross and shape each other across the length of Eliot's most ambitious book.

Themes

The novel explores moral growth and the education of a selfish heart, identity and belonging, and, remarkably for its era, Jewish culture and the early stirrings of Zionism, treated with unusual seriousness and sympathy. Duty, vocation and the search for a life larger than the self run through both its intertwined stories.

Why it still matters

Eliot's last and most daring novel broke ground in its respectful, informed portrayal of Jewish life and thought at a time of casual prejudice. Its psychological penetration, especially in the study of Gwendolen, ranks with her finest work, and its questions of heritage and purpose remain resonant.

Who it's for

For readers who love Eliot's depth and want her most expansive vision, for those interested in the literature of Jewish identity, and for anyone drawn to novels about conscience, awakening and destiny.