Daniel Deronda is a novel written by Mary Ann Evans under the pen name of George Eliot, first published in eight parts (books) February to September 1876. It was the last novel she completed and the only one set in the Victorian society of her day. The work’s mixture of social satire and moral searching, along with its sympathetic rendering of Jewish proto-Zionist ideas, has made it the controversial final statement of one of the most renowned Victorian novelists.
The novel has been adapted for film three times, once as a silent feature and twice for television. It has also been adapted for the stage, notably in the 1960s by the 69 Theatre Company in Manchester with Vanessa Redgrave cast as the heroine Gwendolen Harleth.
The novel has two main strands of plot, and while the “story of Gwendolen” has been described as “one of the masterpieces of English fiction”, that part concerned with Daniel Deronda has been described as “flat and unconvincing”. All the same Daniel’s story has had a significant influence on Zionism.