George Eliot's ‘Daniel Deronda’

Abstract

George Eliot, pen-name of Mary Ann Evans (1819–1880), the novelist and essayist, has a special attraction to Jewish readers as the author of “Daniel Deronda”, the first major “Jewish” novel in English literature of the 19th century to envisage the restoration of Jewry to Israel. It has frequently been cited as “proof” for the latent affinity between the British people and the aspirations of Zionism, while the novel itself has been the subject of various critical assessments. The following essay presents a re-assessment of this novel and of the Jewish influences on the work of its author.