George Eliot's final hove, Daniel Derondg (1870). follows the intertwining lives of the beautiful but spoiled and selfish Gwendolen Harleth and the selfless yet alienated Daniel Deronda. as they search for personal and vocational fulfilment and sympathetic relationship.

Set largely in the degenerate English aristocratic society of the 1800s, Daniel Dcronda charts their search for meaningful lives against a background of irnperialism, the oppression of women, and racial and religious prejudice. Gwendolen's attempts to escape a sadistic relationship and atone for past actions catalyse her friendship with Deronda, while his search for origins leads hirn, via ludaisrn, to a quest for moral growth.

Eliot's radical dual narrative constantly challenges all solutions and ensures that the novel is as controversial now, as when it first appeared.