35 h 6 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 35 h 6 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the life you long for becomes a cage, while a stranger’s suffering gives you a purpose?
At a roulette table in Germany, Gwendolen Harleth catches Daniel Deronda’s eye. Clever, proud and used to admiration, she expects life to bend to her wishes. Then her family loses its money. The wealthy Henleigh Grandcourt offers a way out, but his cold desire for obedience threatens the independence she treasures.
Daniel has money, kindness and every advantage, yet no clear purpose. When he rescues Mirah Lapidoth from the Thames, her search for her lost family draws him into Jewish life in London. George Eliot brings their stories alongside Gwendolen’s, asking what sympathy demands when another person’s troubles become impossible to ignore.
What you’ll discover
- Pride under pressure Follow Gwendolen as family need tests her hunger for admiration and independence.
- The cost of comfort Enter a marriage where wealth offers security but leaves little room for freedom.
- A purpose beyond privilege Watch Daniel seek a calling that comfort and an ordinary career cannot supply.
- Lives beyond country houses Meet Mirah, the Cohen family and Mordecai, whose hopes widen Daniel’s view of life.
- A narrator who reflects Move between minds as Eliot pauses to question motives, choices and duties to others.
Who will love it
This book suits readers who love a rich drawing-room story with a moral heart, who enjoy watching a proud character learn about herself, and who care about belonging and duty.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A stranger unsettles Gwendolen's pride
- Kindness feels like a debt
- Admiration feeds a wish for power
- Courtship hides an unequal bargain
- Poverty puts conscience under pressure
- Daniel answers need before finding purpose
- Mordecai asks Daniel to carry hope
- Conscience grows through encounters with others
Who’s who
- Gwendolen HarlethA beautiful, headstrong young woman who wants power and admiration, and who is forced by sudden poverty to weigh pride against safety.
- Daniel DerondaA thoughtful young man raised by a baronet who does not know his parents and feels called to help others and find a purpose.
- Henleigh GrandcourtA wealthy, cold and languid heir who decides to marry Gwendolen and expects to rule her as he rules everything else.
- Mirah LapidothA gentle, devout young singer who runs from a cruel father and longs to find her mother and brother.
- MordecaiA poor, consumptive Jewish scholar who dreams of a great cause and waits for a younger friend to carry it forward.
- Mr. GascoigneGwendolen's uncle, a worldly and confident rector who wants to see his niece make a brilliant marriage.
- Herr KlesmerA great pianist and composer who tells Gwendolen the truth about her talent and falls in love with an heiress.
- Sir Hugo MallingerA genial baronet who raised Deronda and hopes to secure his estates for his own daughters.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print hardcover
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Daniel Deronda
by George Eliot · 1876
A proud young gambler at a German spa feels a stranger's gaze, and her pawned necklace comes back in a small package.
ChallengingOver 20 hours to read2 languages
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In short
A young woman sits at a roulette table in a German spa town. She is winning, and a small crowd treats her luck as an omen.
Daniel Deronda at a glance
- Reading time
- About 20 h 25 min16 h 10 min fast, 24 h 20 min slow
- Length
- 291,500 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1876by George Eliot
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A stranger's gaze shakes a confident girl
The novel opens in a gambling hall in the German spa town of Leubronn. Gwendolen Harleth, a little over twenty, is winning at roulette and enjoying the attention of the crowd. Around the tables sit countesses, tradesmen and old women in wigs, all wearing the same blank, masked look. Gwendolen alone seems alive. Then she looks up and finds Daniel Deronda watching her from across the table. His look seems cool and measuring, and it stings her pride.
Gwendolen is a girl accustomed to admiration rather than scrutiny. Deronda's glance suggests that he weighs her against a standard she cannot name. Her lips lose color and her stake is swept away. She answers by doubling her bets, since losing with style seems better than being pitied.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1876
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 22 h 50 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Eliot, George. Daniel Deronda. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/daniel-deronda.
Eliot, G. (2026). Daniel Deronda. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daniel-deronda (Original work published 1876)
Eliot, George. Daniel Deronda. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daniel-deronda.
@book{eliot2026daniel,
author = {Eliot, George},
title = {Daniel Deronda},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daniel-deronda},
note = {First published 1876}
}
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What is Daniel Deronda about?
It follows two intertwined lives. Gwendolen Harleth is a proud young woman who marries for security, and Daniel Deronda is a young man searching for his origins and purpose. Their paths cross again and again, and each changes the other.
Who is Daniel Deronda?
He is a young Englishman raised by the baronet Sir Hugo Mallinger, with no known parents. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he is known for his sympathy and for helping people in trouble, including Gwendolen and a young singer named Mirah.
When was Daniel Deronda written?
George Eliot published it in 1876, and it was her last novel. It is set in the 1860s, in country houses, London streets and European spa towns. The characters are invented, though the setting is drawn from the real world.
The author
George Eliot
1819–1880 · English novelist
George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, an English novelist, essayist, poet and journalist. She was born in Warwickshire in 1819 and later lived in London, where she died in 1880. Her novels include Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Middlemarch (1871–1872).
More by George Eliot
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