In Book 7, we find Gwendolyn and Grandcourt sailing through the Mediterranean and ending up in Genoa. Gwendolyn joins Grandcourt for a quick sail, even though she doesn’t want to go sailing (Eliot, pg. 572). This trip leads to Grandcourt’s untimely death and a retrospect of Gwendolyn’s feelings about her life currently.  

Boating was a popular pastime in the Victorian era. Women weren’t always regulated to just sitting on the boat, like Gwendolyn was in the novel. Some would take up rowing and became involved in rowing clubs and boat races (Boating, Sailing and Rowing). Throughout the 19^th century, inventors designed boats to run off of steam, which was more reliable than wind power (Dunkley). While the boat in the novel is a wind powered yacht, the steam engines were being used to ferry people all around England and Europe. In England, the Thames became so popular with pleasure boaters it led to the creation of the Thames Preservation Act or 1885 in an effort to protect the river for leisure (Wenham).

Works Cited

<https://www.victorianvoices.net/topics/recreation/boating.shtml>.

Dunkley, Mark. "Ships and Boats: 1840-1950." Historic England. Historic England, July 2016.

Eliot, George. Daniel Deronda. Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 2014.

Wenham, Simon. The History of Boating on the Thames. 31 December 2018. <http://simonwenham.com/history-boating-thames/>.