In Berlin, Max Duncker and his brother, Wolfgang, own a thriving publishing business, which owes its success to one woman: 'The Sibyl', or George Eliot, whose final installment of the bestselling serial Middlemarch is in the process of being written. Max is as fond of gambling and brothels as Wolfgang is of making a profit and berating his spendthrift brother, but Max is given a chance to prove his worth by visiting the Sibyl and her 'husband' Lewes, to finalise the publishing rights to her new novel. The Sibyl proves to be as enthralling and intelligent as her books, bewitching Max and all of those around her.
But Wolfgang has an ulterior motive for Max's visit; he wants his brother to consider the beautiful eighteen-year-old Sophie von Hahn as a potential wife. An old acquaintance, she comes from a German family of great wealth. However, Sophie proves to be nothing like the angelic vision of domesticity Max envisaged; wild and wilful, she gambles recklessly yet always wins, rides horses fiercely and is happy to disobey authority, especially when it comes to the forbidden act of contacting her heroine, who happens to be George Eliot. Enchanted by this whirlwind vision, Max nevertheless fears he will never be able to tame her.
With its vivid portrayal of George Eliot and how she lived her life, and of the turbulent and surprising love story of Max and Sophie, Sophie and the Sibyl is both a thrilling and compulsive read and a literary achievement of the highest order.
