Daniel Deronda [Paperback]

A beautiful young woman stands poised over the gambling tables in an expensive hotel. She is aware of, and resents, the gaze of an unusual young man, a stranger, who seems to judge her, and find her wanting. The encounter will change her life.

The strange young man is Daniel Deronda, brought up with his own origins shrouded in mystery, searching for a compelling outlet for his singular talents and remarkable capacity for empathy. Deronda's destiny will change the lives of many.

• Daniel Deronda... is written with an understanding of egoism that no one except Proust has ever matched, and a calm assurance of style that sends a shiver of terrified sympathy down my spine. --Laurence Lerner,Independent

• The foremost woman novelist of her day. --Evening Standard

George Eliot was born in Nuneaton on 22nd November 1819. Baptized Mary Anne Evans, Eliot chose to write using a male pen name. She was sent away to school but returned when her mother died in 1836.She later moved to Coventry with her father.After her father's death she became the Assistant Editor of the Westminster Review in 1851. She also met George Henry Lewes this year and they became partners for the rest of his life. Lewes was already married, although he and his wife both considered their relationship to be an open one, but he and Eliot set up home together, much to the dismay of polite London society.

In 1857 Eliot publishedAmos BartoninBlackwood's Magazineand in 1859 her novelAdam Bedewas published to great acclaim.Her first attempt to writeMiddlemarch,her most famous novel, ended in failure. Abandoning it, she began a short novella entitledMiss Brookewhich was eventually integrated into the final version ofMiddlemarch.The novel was published serially in eight parts in 1871. Lewes died in 1878 and Eliot married again in 1880. Her husband, John Walter Cross was an American who was twenty years her junior. George Eliot lƒ!