The Jewish Odyssey of George Eliot

Biography & Autobiography / Literary

Gertrude Himmelfarb, a leading Victorian scholar, has undertaken to unravel the mysterious of Daniel Deronda. And the mysteries of Eliot herself: a novelist who deliberately wrote a book she knew would bewilder many of her readers, a distinguished woman who opposed the enfranchisement of women, a moralist who flouted the most venerable of material conventions - above all, the author of a novel that is still an inspiration or provocation to readers and critics alike. Gertrude Himmelfarb, professor emeritus at the Graduate School of the City University, has written extensively on intellectual and cultural history with a focus on Victorian England. Her most recent books are The people of the Book: Philosemitism in England, from Cromwell to Churchill; The Moral Imagination: From Edmund Burke to Lionel Trilling; and The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightements. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2004 she received the National Humanities Medal awarded by the President.