Tancred (novel)

It shares a number of characters with the earlier novels, but unlike them is concerned less with the political and social condition of England than with a religious and even mystical theme: the question of how Judaism and Christianity are to be reconciled, and the Church reborn as a progressive force.

[1] Tancred, Lord Montacute, the novel's idealistic young hero, seems destined to live the life of a conventional member of the British ruling class.

Dissatisfied with his life in fashionable London circles, he instead leaves his parents and retraces the steps of his Crusader ancestors to the Holy Land, hoping there to "penetrate the great Asian mystery"[2] and understand the roots of Christianity.

He meets the beautiful Eva, daughter of a Jewish financier, and becomes involved in the political machinations of her foster-brother, the brilliant Fakredeen, a Lebanese emir.

Tancred, in love with Eva and utterly convinced that she is right, proposes marriage, but the romance is broken off when his parents appear to reclaim their son and take him back to England.