George Eliot

"Daniel Deronda," by George Eliot, is part of the "Barnes & Noble Classics"" "series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of "Barnes & Noble Classics" All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. "Barnes & Noble Classics "pulls together a constellation of influences--biographical, historical, and literary--to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. George Eliot's last, most ambitious novel, "Daniel Deronda" aroused scandal when it first appeared in 1876. What begins as a passionate love story takes a surprising turn into the hidden world of the early Zionist movement in Victorian England. The story opens memorably at a roulette table, where we first meet the young and idealistic Daniel Deronda and the enchanting Gwendolen Harleth--whom many critics consider to be George Eliot's finest creation. Although the two are immediately drawn to one another, Gwendolen--outwardly alluring and vivacious, inwardly complex and unsettled--is forced by circumstance into an oppressive marriage with the harsh aristocratic Henleigh Grandcourt. Deeply unhappy, she turns for friendship to Daniel, only to discover his involvement with Mirah Lapidoth, a talented young Jewish woman. Torn between his devotion to Gwendolen and his passion for Mirah and the plight of her people, Daniel is forced to look at his own mysterious past and find out who he really is--and who he wants to become. Earl L. Dachslager is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Houston and an adjunct professor in the University's Distant Education Program. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Maryland. He reviews books regularly for the "Houston Chronicle."

George Eliot's Middlemarch (1871-72) is one of the classic novels of English literature and was admired by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." The complex main plot and many subplots revolve around Dorothea Brooke, an ardent young woman, and her relationship to three men: Casaubon, a clergyman and scholar twice her age; Lydgate, an ambitious young doctor who shares Dorothea's enthusiasm for reform but whose flaws compromise his ambitions; and Will Ladislaw, a young man of mysterious origins, romantic temperament, and artistic inclinations. A female Bildungsroman and a study of character and society in the realistic mode pioneered by Balzac, Middlemarch is also an historical novel that offers a panorama of English society in an era of social reform and political agitation. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a rich selection of contextual materials, including contemporary reviews of the novel, other writings by George Eliot (essays, reviews, and criticism), and historical documents pertaining to medical reform, religious freedom, and the advent of the railroads.