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Swann's Way
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Swann's Way is the first novel of Marcel Proust's seven-volume magnum opus In Search of Lost Time. Following the narrator's opening ruminations about the nature of sleep is one of 20th-century literature’s most famous scenes: the eating of the madeleine soaked in a "decoction of lime-flowers", the associative act from which the remainder of the narrative unfurls.
After elaborate reminiscences about his childhood with relatives in rural Combray and in urban Paris, Proust's narrator recalls a story regarding Charles Swann, a major figure in his Combray childhood, and his escapades in 19th-century privileged Parisian society, revolving around his obsessive love for young socialite Odette de Creacy.
Filled with searing, insightful, and humorous criticisms of French society, this novel showcases Proust's innovative prose style. With narration that alternates between first and third person, Swann's Way unconventionally introduces Proust's recurring themes of memory, love, art, and the human experience - and for nearly a century, audiences have deliciously savored each moment.
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What listeners say about Swann's Way
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Samuel Murray
- 05-02-11
Not the newer, far better translation
Because the Audible "release date" is 9-10, I thought this "new" recording must be the Lydia Davis translation. If you glance at the old Moncrief version (this recording, it turns out), youi can see why everyone has said for years, "you've got to read the French to get Proust." But the critics unanimously have praised the new translations for "In Search of Lost Time" series. And Davis' Swann's Way (from 2002!) has had hymns composed in praise.
Yet here we have a "new" release in the old Victorian Moncrief mess that has put so many English readers to sleep. Though I paid for book in December, I didn't start listening until recently and feel deceived and ripped off by Audible's lack of description. Of course, shame on me for thinking recent should mean up to date.
50 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Laurie
- 11-18-10
Like that madeleine...
I listen to a LOT of audiobooks -- daily. I often listen as I go about tasks -- gardening, driving, needlework, etc. This production of Swann's Way stopped me in my tracks. It is so rich, so engaging that it requires my full attention and engages my feelings and thoughts wholly. If you thought Proust perhaps less than accessible, dip in to this. Mr. Vance's narration will lead you to that place of memory, longing and insight that may have been Proust's best intention for his work. Savor it. Roll it around on the tongue of your mind. Enjoy.
26 people found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- Tad Davis
- 08-06-19
Not for me
I've been putting off Proust all my life, but recently I realized that, having read the entire Song of Ice and Fire series straight through not once but twice, I could no longer use the excuse of length as a reason for avoiding “In Search of Lost Time.” Since one of the available audiobooks is read by Simon Vance — always a safe bet — I decided to dip my toe in.
After hearing so much about the series over the years, I was surprised to see that it doesn't actually start with the narrator biting into a cookie. (It starts with him falling asleep while reading in bed.) The narrator — I think we later learn that he’s named Marcel, so I’ll use that name for convenience — remembers the many nights when a family friend named Swann visited, so that Marcel had to go to bed without being tucked in by his mother. To Marcel, this is a trauma bordering on abuse.
We quickly learn that Marcel has a few issues, to put it mildly. To an unhealthy extent, he's obsessed with his mother, with the writer Bergotte, and with the Duchess of Guermantes, who turns out not to be as beautiful in real life as he'd imagined her to be. He is shocked to find a neighbor’s daughter kissing another woman (town gossip has already linked them romantically), and concludes on very little evidence that she must be a sadist. His idealization of women seems to be paving the way for a colossal upset in the future.
After laying this basic groundwork of character, Marcel drops back 15 years to tell the story of Swann and how he happened to marry a woman who is politely described by her friends, or at least by Marcel, as a “courtesan.” To the extent that the novel has a coherent plot, this tale of “Swann in Love” is at the core. And so we find out, rather late in the game, that the bulk of the novel is not really about Marcel at all.
Swann falls in love with Odette, who is not an especially bright or talented woman but who is exceptionally beautiful and has a body that men lust after — something she has been using for years to her financial benefit. They have an agreeable relationship until he ventures into areas of her life that she's reserved for herself. He discovers rivals.
This should be the end of it, but somehow Swann finds it possible to abase himself and carry on the relationship. Then, predictably, another crisis arises and he decides once and for all that he’s done with Odette.
.... except that under the terms of the framing narrative, Swann has married Odette, and they have a daughter old enough to spark a romantic interest in the adolescent Marcel. It may be that somewhere in the remaining 6 volumes of the novel, we learn how this marriage of false minds came about. But for the time being, it just is. The end result is that my experience of reading Proust is one of frustration and disappointment.
I have friends whose opinion I respect who tell me I’m missing the point. Because of that — and because I’ve often been wrong about such things in the past — I’ll plug away for one or two more volumes. The novel has had such a big influence that I feel like I need to know something about it. I’m only sorry none of the other volumes are narrated by Simon Vance, who I think could make a railroad timetable sound interesting.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Andrew Carbonaro
- 03-09-18
Absolute nonsense
This book follows what can only be assumed to be the ravings of an Oedipal mama’s boy, with absolutely no point or plot to be seen. Worst possible novel ever written. If I hear Simon Vance say Combray one more time, I might jump from a building.
2 people found this helpful
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Story
- Eve Howard
- 07-31-21
The Metaphors have back stories
Proust is like an anal enthusiast who goes into an adult book store and tries to prove to the (completely uninterested) counter clerk that he’s “normal” by sandwiching his enema magazine in between four regular hardcore sex ones.
I feel as though I'm being lied to from the get-go. The rhapsodic worship of Society, Culture, Nature, Astheticism and Swann’s financial and emotional slavery to Odette seem to me to be a collection of voluminous beards. So he can sneak in a little vignette about “vicious” lesbians. Or admire some beefy footmen. Without anyone really noticing. But I did.
The whole Swann-Odette love affair seems to me a fable, dreamt up by a gay man who desperately wants to convince the world that he understands heterosexual passion better than anyone has ever done.
I feel as though I’ve traveled through Proust’s effete and insipid society with Colette, that I’ve experienced his aesthetic and icy snobbery, through the Picture of Dorian Gray and his obsessively exquisite perversity through A Rebours. The metaphors are magnificent, but excessive to the point of madness.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall

- Choosy
- 11-23-10
Proust at a gallop
This is Proust at a gallop. Simon Vance has a pleasant voice and articulates beautifully, but reads far too fast. No time to relish the words or enjoy the thought; the narrative has already left me behind. Don't buy this version. It's exhausting.
6 people found this helpful
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Story
The book probes the possible roles of four brothers in the unresolved murder of their father, Fyodor Karamazov. At the same time, it carefully explores the personalities and inclinations of the brothers themselves. Their psyches together represent the full spectrum of human nature, the continuum of faith and doubt. Ultimately, this novel seeks to understand the real meaning of faith and existence and includes much beneficial philosophical and spiritual discussion that moves the reader towards faith.
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An expert abridgement
- By Tad Davis on 04-26-13
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
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Remembrance of Things Past
- Swann's Way
- By: Marcel Proust, Scott Moncrieff - translator
- Narrated by: John Rowe
- Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Swann's Way is Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece and the first part of the multivolume audiobook Remembrance of Things Past. In the opening volume, the narrator travels back in time to recall his childhood and to introduce the listener to Charles Swann, a wealthy friend of the family and celebrity in the Parisian social scene. He again travels back, this time to the youth of Charles Swann in the French town of Combray, to tell the story of the love affair that took place before his own birth.
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EXCELLENT!
- By Maggie on 08-18-10
By: Marcel Proust, and others
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In Search of Lost Time (Dramatized)
- By: Marcel Proust
- Narrated by: James Wilby, Jonathan Firth, Harriet Walter, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Featuring a fictional version of himself - 'Marcel' - and a host of friends, acquaintances, and lovers, In Search of Lost Time is Proust's search for the key to the mysteries of memory, time, and consciousness. As he recalls his childhood days, the sad affair of Charles Swann and Odette de Crecy, his transition to manhood, the tortures of love and the ravages of war, he realises that the simplest of discoveries can lead to astonishing possibilities.
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Proust Snapshot
- By Wendy on 05-06-14
By: Marcel Proust
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In Search of Lost Time
- A BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation
- By: Marcel Proust
- Narrated by: full cast, Derek Jacobi, Frances Barber, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Waking in the small hours, Marcel Proust embarks on a retrospective journey, endeavouring to capture the elusive moments that shaped his life. A sip of tea and the taste of a madeleine prompt further recollections, and the floodgates of memory open, pouring forth a torrent of vivid reminiscences.
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Before reading the longest novel every written
- By Fiat Lumen on 01-28-23
By: Marcel Proust
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War and Peace, Volume 2
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 31 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.
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A long book, but at least the chapters are short
- By Tad Davis on 09-11-08
By: Leo Tolstoy
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The Charterhouse of Parma
- By: Stendhal
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 19 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Charterhouse of Parma is a twisting tale of passion and intrigue following the adventures of Fabrizio del Dongo, a young Italian nobleman who dreams of glory on the battlefields of Europe and finds himself fighting alongside Napoleon at Waterloo. After returning home, Fabrizio becomes entangled in Machiavellian scheming, an ill-advised romance, and a fatal duel that lands him in prison, where he begins a star-crossed love affair with the ethereal Clelia, the commandant’s daughter.
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Censored.
- By Amazon Customer on 04-28-23
By: Stendhal
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The Brothers Karamazov
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
The book probes the possible roles of four brothers in the unresolved murder of their father, Fyodor Karamazov. At the same time, it carefully explores the personalities and inclinations of the brothers themselves. Their psyches together represent the full spectrum of human nature, the continuum of faith and doubt. Ultimately, this novel seeks to understand the real meaning of faith and existence and includes much beneficial philosophical and spiritual discussion that moves the reader towards faith.
-
-
An expert abridgement
- By Tad Davis on 04-26-13
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
-
War and Peace, Volume 1
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 30 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
-
Story
War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.
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A Truly Great Book and a Truly Astounding Narrator
- By A Midwesterner in Jersey on 05-18-09
By: Leo Tolstoy
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The Man Without Qualities
- By: Robert Musil
- Narrated by: John Telfer
- Length: 60 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
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An unmatched intellectual epic
- By Delano on 06-23-22
By: Robert Musil
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Underworld
- By: Don DeLillo
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 31 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nick Shay and Klara Sax knew each other once, intimately, and they meet again in the American desert. He is trying to outdistance the crucial events of his early life, haunted by the hard logic of loss and by the echo of a gunshot in a basement room. She is an artist who has made a blood struggle for independence.
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CYBEX burned into my eyes
- By Ruth Ann Orlansky on 07-01-12
By: Don DeLillo
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One Hundred Years of Solitude
- By: Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
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What in the heck happened?????
- By Melinda on 02-05-14
By: Gabriel García Márquez, and others
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The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume I, Fort Sumter to Perryville
- By: Shelby Foote
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 42 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Civil War: A Narrative, Volume 1 begins one of the most remarkable works of history ever fashioned. All the great battles are here, of course, from Bull Run through Shiloh, the Seven Days Battles, and Antietam, but so are the smaller ones: Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, Pea Ridge, Island Ten, New Orleans, and Monitor versus Merrimac.
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OUTSTANDING! I'M PROUD TO BE A BLACK AMERICAN!!
- By The Louligan on 08-22-13
By: Shelby Foote
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Never Let Me Go
- By: Kazuo Ishiguro
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.
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Be patient; it will pay off
- By Kc on 05-23-05
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
Related to this topic
-
Remembrance of Things Past
- Swann's Way
- By: Marcel Proust, Scott Moncrieff - translator
- Narrated by: John Rowe
- Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Swann's Way is Marcel Proust's literary masterpiece and the first part of the multivolume audiobook Remembrance of Things Past. In the opening volume, the narrator travels back in time to recall his childhood and to introduce the listener to Charles Swann, a wealthy friend of the family and celebrity in the Parisian social scene. He again travels back, this time to the youth of Charles Swann in the French town of Combray, to tell the story of the love affair that took place before his own birth.
-
-
EXCELLENT!
- By Maggie on 08-18-10
By: Marcel Proust, and others
-
The Portrait of a Lady
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: John Wood
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy the freedom that her fortune has opened up and to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors, declaring that she will never marry. It is only when she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the cultivated but worthless Gilbert Osmond that she discovers that wealth is a two-edged sword.
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Highly recommended
- By David on 06-26-10
By: Henry James
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The Bostonians
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Taking place in Boston, Massachusetts, a decade after the Civil War, The Bostonians tells the story of two cousins who battle for the affections of and control over an enchanting prophetess. While visiting his cousin Olive Chancellor, a fierce feminist deeply involved in the Suffragette movement, Basil Ransom, a Confederate Civil War veteran turned lawyer, attends a speech by the talented young orator Verena Tarrant. Basil quickly falls in love with Verena, although he disagrees with her politics; Olive, however, sees her as the future of the women's rights movement.
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A satire that turns tragic
- By Tad Davis on 08-23-20
By: Henry James
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Daniel Deronda
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 36 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Meeting by chance at a gambling hall in Europe, the separate lives of Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth are immediately intertwined. Daniel, an Englishman of uncertain parentage, becomes Gwendolyn's redeemer as she finds herself drawn to his spiritual and altruistic nature after a loveless marriage. But Daniel's path was already set when he rescued a young Jewess from suicide.
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Give it a try!
- By Tucker LaPrade on 01-30-16
By: George Eliot