From the back cover: "Among the many fatalities attending the bloom of young desire, that of blindly taking to the confectionary line has not, perhaps, been sufficiently considered"

The allure of candied sugars suggests to David Faux that the confectionary business would be a favoured trade to pursue. By the time of his apprenticeship, however, David's sweet tooth has changed and, but for lack of twenty guineas, emigration to a warmer clime tempts him. Stealing is wrong, but to take money from his mother surely cannot be a crime? This is the story of David's convoluted plans to foil his slow-witted brother Jacob in his quest for fortune, and of the arrival in Grimworth, some years later, of a Mr Edward Freely who speaks of West Indian escapades and seems set to win the heart of the town with his pastry dainties, and the hand of the charming Penelope Palfrey ... Brother Jacob originally appeared in an 1878 Cabinet edition, together with Silas Marner and The Lifted Veil. This wry tale, described by George Eliot as "an admirable instance of the unexpected forms in which the great Nemesis hides herself", is now available in its own right for the first time.