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Daniel Deronda
Daniel Deronda
Dec 2, 2025 5:53 AM

Author:George Eliot

Daniel Deronda

George Eliot's final novel is an extraordinary, keen and yet tender examination of two very different lives.

A beautiful young woman stands poised over the gambling tables in an expensive hotel. She is aware of, and resents, the gaze of an unusual young man, a stranger, who seems to judge her, and find her wanting. The encounter will change her life.

The strange young man is Daniel Deronda, brought up with his own origins shrouded in mystery, searching for a compelling outlet for his singular talents and remarkable capacity for empathy. Deronda's destiny will change the lives of many.

‘There is not a page of Daniel Deronda that is not marked with intelligence, and a few are as queer and perceptive as any I've read’ Sunday Times

Reviews

Daniel Deronda...is written with an understanding of egoism that no one except Proust has ever matched, and a calm assurance of style that sends a shiver of terrified sympathy down my spine.

—— Laurence Lerner , Independent

The foremost woman novelist of her day

—— Evening Standard

From Adam Bede to Daniel Deronda, she questioned her times. She plumbed ideas, politics, religion, race, and above all the vagaries of the heart

—— Guardian

700 pages of intellectual thrills. Watch out for the amazing women: Lydia Glasher, the abandoned mistress baying for revenge, and Alcharisi, the singer who gives up her son to pursue her career

—— Patricia Duncker , Daily Telegraph

There is not a page of Daniel Deronda that is not marked with intelligence, and a few are as queer and perceptive as any I've read

—— Edmund White , Sunday Times

Daniel Deronda must surely rank high among works of literature that (excluding the Bible and other religious texts) have had the greatest effect on the world

—— Sunday Times

...formidable, meaty tales that cling on and don’t let go.

—— The Independent

[Adam Johnson] is always perceptive and brave; his lines always sing and strut and sizzle and hush and wash and blaze over the reader.

—— The New York Times Book Review

Adam Johnson . . . demonstrates again his boundless imagination, his ability to capture an entire personality in a few perfectly chosen details, and his gift for making foreign territory feel utterly familiar. Johnson is willing to go into real darkness and send a beacon back from the depths of tragedy, and his voice is as inevitable and fresh as anything being written today.

—— Matthew Thomas

Entrancing.

—— O: The Oprah Magazine

[Adam Johnson] serves up six sinewy stories that shock and surprise in his edgy, inviting Fortune Smiles . . . compulsively readable.

—— Elle

[A] bold and deeply wise collection

—— BuzzFeed

Startlingly, blazingly original.

—— BookPage

[A] riveting collection of short stories ... darkly imagined, slightly surreal

—— San Jose Mercury News

Exhilarating ... His mastery of setting simply wowed me.

—— THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Marked by the conflicts of heart and mind, and the exuberant quality of its compassionate prose.

—— THE HUFFINGTON POST

Compulsively readable ... Johnson serves up six sinewy stories that shock and surprise.

—— Elle Magazine

A rare combination of inventiveness, intellectual pyrotechnics and emotional sophistication ... these stories are treasures.

—— BBC.Com

Bittersweet, elegant, full of ward-won wisdom: this is no ordinary book either.

—— Publishers Weekly (starred and boxed review)

Hefty and memorable ...the stories provide one of the truest satisfactions of reading: the opportunity to sing into worlds we otherwise know little or nothing about.

—— Starred Kirkus Review

Terrific. Shows exactly why Johnson is rated as one of the hottest writers of his generation.

—— Mail on Sunday

The perfect antidote to Trump.

—— Sarah Churchwell , Guardian

This book is a compelling study of the relationship between artist and spectator, and how suffering feeds into art, and he’s made of it a bravura performance… Extraordinary.

—— Alastair Mabbott , Herald

A haunting, intense and Man Booker International prize-winning novel from a great writer.

—— Mail on Sunday

Incredibly fast paced, and the dialogue comes at you like a machine gun… It is powerful in its own right.

—— Sara Garland , Nudge

Abrasive, unexpected and eventually heartbreaking, it is a masterclass in characterisation and structure, and it beat off some exceptionally strong competition to win the prize… A Horse Walks into a Bar is quite unlike any other Grossman book except in one important respect: it’s another masterpiece.

—— Nick Barley , New Statesman

Excellent.

—— Dara Ó Briain , Observer

Pitch-perfect black comedy

—— Salman Rushdie , Guardian
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