THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING GWENDOLEN: CONTEXTS FOR GEORGE ELIOT'S "DANIEL DERONDA"

Since the publication of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda in 1876, readers have regarded her hero as unique and have speculated about the sources she used for his Jewish heritage and Zionist mission. In contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to the derivation of her heroine, Gwendolen Harleth. Gordon Haight's standard biography of Eliot, for example, reviews the various "originals" that have been proposed for the major Jewish characters in the novel (Deronda, Mirah, Mordecai, Klesmer) with no mention of possible models for any of the other major characters.1 Graham Handley's introduction to the recent Clarendon edition of the novel cites Eliot's observation