Daniel Deronda (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Eliot, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140434275 ISBN 13: 9780140434279

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1996

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Daniel Deronda opens with one of the most memorable encounters in fiction: Gwendolen Harleth, alluring yet unsettling, is poised at the roulette-table in Leubronn, observed by Daniel Deronda, a young man groomed in the finest tradition of the English upper classes, and now searching for his path in life. While Gwendolen becomes trapped in an oppressive marriage, a series of dramatic encounters draws Deronda into ever deeper sympathy with Jewish aspirations to cultural and natural identity. Remote as Gwendolen's country-house world may seem from the world of Mirah, the lost daughter, and Mordecai, the visionary, George Eliot weaves these strands of her plot intimately together, daring the readers of Adam Bede and Middlemarch to open their eyes to areas of experience wholly new to the Victorian novel.

From the Inside Flap:

George Eliot's final novel and her most ambitious work, Daniel Deronda contrasts the moral laxity of the British aristocracy with the dedicated fervor of Jewish nationalists. Crushed by a loveless marriage to the cruel and arrogant Grandcourt, Gwendolen Harleth seeks salvation in the deeply spiritual and altruistic Daniel Deronda. But Deronda, profoundly affected by the discovery of his Jewish ancestry, is ultimately too committed to his own cultural awakening to save Gwendolen from despair.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1878 Cabinet Edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0140434275
• ISBN 13: 9780140434279
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 896
• Editor: Cave Terence