Daniel Deronda

In Daniel Deronda, George Eliot left behind the world of the Victorian middle classes that she explored so well in Middlemarch. Eliot, with her hero Deronda, attempts to come to terms with the English Jews, a society within a society, which the people of her time seemed either oblivious to or contemptuous of. With her heroine, Gwendolen Harleth, who married for power rather than love, she explores a vein in human relations that can only lead, despite good intentions, to despair.