Daniel Deronda

Under the pseudonym George Eliot, Mary Ann Evans wrote the novel Daniel Deronda, which was first released in eight parts (books) from February to September 1876. It was the only book she ever finished that was set in her era's Victorian society. One of the most known Victorian novelists' contentious final work is a controversial combination of social satire, moral reflection, and sympathetic representation of Jewish proto-Zionist views. The novel has been adapted three times for the screen: twice for motion pictures and once for television. Additionally, it has been adapted for the stage, most famously by the 69 Theatre Company in Manchester in the 1960s, which starred Vanessa Redgrave as the lead character Gwendolen Harleth. Although the "tale of Gwendolen'' has been called "one of the classics of English fiction," the portion of the narrative involving Daniel Deronda has been called "flat and unconvincing." Nevertheless, Zionism has been greatly influenced by Daniel's tale. In 1948, F. R. Leavis argued that the Jewish sections of The Great Tradition were its weakest and that a truncated version called Gwendolen Harleth should be printed on its own. Some Zionist commentators have advocated the opposite truncation, keeping the Jewish section, but with Gwendole's story omitted.

Mary Anne Evans (22 November 1819 - 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Ann or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862-63), Middlemarch (1871-72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of which are set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.
Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she wanted to escape the stereotype of women's writing being limited to lighthearted romances. She also wanted to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. Another factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny, thus avoiding the scandal that would have arisen because of her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes.