Enter the world of provincial English commerce and meet the most memorably punished miser in Victorian literature. Read George Eliot’s darkly comic masterpiece of greed and comeuppance completely free online.
Published in 1864, Brother Jacob is George Eliot’s only published short story. It is also one of the most perfect things she ever wrote. Wedged between the massive achievements of Romola and Felix Holt, this little tale of a confectioner, a simpleton, and a stolen hoard of silver-gilt teaspoons represents Eliot at her most playful, her most cynical, and her most surprisingly funny.
David Faux is a young man with aspirations. He despises his humble origins, his tedious apprenticeship, his provincial future. He dreams of the West Indies, of sugar plantations and enslaved labor, of wealth acquired without the indignity of honest work. To finance his passage, he steals his mother’s savings—a bag of coins she had hidden in her mattress. His brother Jacob, the “natural” of the family, witnesses the theft. Jacob cannot speak clearly, cannot understand what he has seen, cannot be reasoned with or bribed. He simply wants the pretty yellow things. David gives him a teaspoon. Jacob is satisfied. David sails for the islands.
But the West Indies are not the paradise of David’s imagination. He returns to England, assumes a new identity as Mister Edward Freely, and opens a confectionery in a provincial town. He courts the local beauty. He ingratiates himself with the respectable families. He is on the verge of achieving everything he has ever wanted. Then Jacob arrives.
On this page, you can experience George Eliot’s most concentrated dose of narrative justice. We offer the complete 1864 text for online reading.
Book Info
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | Brother Jacob |
| Author | George Eliot |
| Year of Publication | 1864 |
| Genre | Short Story, Satire, Moral Fiction |
| Language | English |
| Legal Status | Public Domain Worldwide |
| Format | Online Reading |
Read Brother Jacob Online
Taste the marzipan and tremble at the knock on the door. Begin this masterpiece of moral comedy by entering David Faux’s confectionery interactively below.
This preview introduces the aspiring emigrant and his unfortunate witness. However, the full, exquisitely calibrated narrative of crime and punishment—the theft, the voyage, the false identity, the courtship, and the irresistible, inexorable return of the repressed—is available in the complete text for our subscribers.
A subscription unlocks this essential work of Victorian short fiction and the complete works of George Eliot. Discover the novelist who believed that no sin goes unpunished, even if the punishment takes decades to arrive.
About the Story Brother Jacob
Brother Jacob is a fable. It has the clarity of folk tale, the economy of moral instruction, the satisfaction of justice perfectly calibrated to crime. But it is also, unmistakably, a work of George Eliot: psychologically acute, socially observant, suffused with a compassion that extends even to the objects of its satire.
David Faux: The Self-Deceiver
David is not merely a thief; he is a fantasist. He imagines himself a gentleman, a man of taste and refinement, entitled to the pleasures that others must work to earn. He steals from his mother and justifies the theft as a loan. He abandons his family and imagines himself a pioneer. He courts a woman he does not love and imagines himself a romantic hero. His tragedy—and it is a tragedy, despite the comic form—is that he believes his own fictions. He cannot see himself as others see him. He cannot recognize his own absurdity.
Jacob: The Avenger
Jacob is David’s brother and his opposite. He is simple, innocent, incapable of deceit. He does not understand that the teaspoon David gave him was stolen; he only knows that it is pretty and that he wants it. He does not pursue David to expose him; he pursues David because David is his brother and he wants to be near him. The destruction he wreaks on David’s elaborate edifice of lies is not intentional; it is the inevitable consequence of his presence. He is the truth that cannot be hidden, the past that cannot be escaped.
The Confectionery
David Faux’s chosen profession is rich with symbolic resonance. He sells sweets, delicacies, pleasures that are pleasant but not nourishing. His confectionery is the physical manifestation of his character: attractive, insubstantial, designed to please the eye rather than sustain the body. When Jacob arrives, he does not understand the distinction between the display goods and the actual inventory; he eats everything. The confectionery is consumed by the very appetite it was designed to stimulate.
The Courtship
David’s pursuit of Penny Palfrey, the daughter of a respectable grocer, is a masterpiece of comic misunderstanding. He believes he is seducing her with his continental sophistication and his elegant confections. In fact, she is attracted to him because he reminds her of a character in a novel. Both are performing roles, enacting scripts, mistaking literary convention for authentic emotion. Eliot, who knew something about the dangers of romantic fiction, renders their courtship with affectionate irony.
The Unraveling
The story’s climax is not a confrontation but an accumulation. Jacob appears in the town, recognized by no one but David. He follows his brother, eats his wares, disrupts his courtship. His presence is unexplained, inexplicable. The respectable families of the town draw their own conclusions: David must be hiding something, must be ashamed of something, must be not who he claims to be. The edifice of lies collapses not under direct assault but under the weight of accumulated suspicion.
Moral Justice
Eliot was not a believer in divine punishment, but she was a firm believer in consequences. David Faux is not struck by lightning; he is not arrested, not exposed, not formally punished. He simply loses everything he has gained: his reputation, his prospects, his fiancée, his dreams. He is left with nothing but his original inheritance—his family, his origins, his brother. This is not justice as the law understands it. It is justice as life delivers it.
Why Read the Story Brother Jacob Today?
Because it is perfect. In forty pages, Eliot achieves a density of characterization, a precision of social observation, and a completeness of moral vision that many novelists cannot achieve in four hundred. It is also, quite simply, delightful. The prose is crisp, the irony is deft, the conclusion is simultaneously inevitable and surprising. It is the ideal introduction to George Eliot for readers intimidated by the length of her major novels.
FAQ
Is this the only short story George Eliot wrote?
She published one other, “The Lifted Veil,” which is a Gothic fantasy quite different in tone from Brother Jacob. The two stories are often published together.
Why is it not as famous as her novels?
Short fiction was not Eliot’s preferred form, and her reputation rests securely on her eight novels. Brother Jacob has been somewhat neglected, though it has attracted increasing attention from critics who recognize its technical perfection.
Is Jacob meant to be sympathetic?
Yes. Eliot treats Jacob with genuine tenderness. His simplicity is not a deficiency to be pitied but an alternative mode of being, untouched by the vanities and deceits that poison his brother’s life. He is the innocent who destroys the guilty not through judgment but through presence.
How long is it?
Approximately 40 pages in standard editions. It is a single-sitting read.
Can I read it on my phone?
Yes. It is the perfect length for an afternoon’s immersion in Victorian moral comedy.