![]() ![]() George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda is the outstanding novel about British Jews and nothing else really comes close. ![]() It’s a strange quirk of Anglo-Jewish history that the finest book ever published about Jews in this country was written by a gentile, but it’s indisputably true. George Eliot (1865), engraving from a portrait by Frederick Burton, Wikimedia Commons How did she pull off this singular feat? And why? Set at the zenith of Victorian England, George Eliot’s last novel displays a deep empathy towards British Jews, while also laying out the author’s firm proto-Zionist sympathies. Who are his real parents? A chance meeting draws him into Whitechapel and the world of British Jews, with whom he has a growing affinity, before eventually discovering the remarkable story of his own birth. Raised in an aristocratic household, Deronda longs to discover his true origins. Published in 1876, Daniel Deronda is a unique novel in the history of 19th century English literature. ![]()
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