David Faux is an apprentice at a confectionary store, but he hates it. He feels that he is better than other people, is above the average in intelligence, and he wants a job fitting his potential. He finishes his apprentice work, and then decides to run off to make his fortune. But he has no money. His family has some money, but not much. His father promised him 100 pounds in his will, but he was still alive. His mother has 20 pounds in a jar and promised each of her seven children a share. One of the sons, Jacob, is an idiot, who can hardly speak. David steals his mother's 20 pounds.

David takes the money and runs to hide it in a hole, but Jacob comes and recognizes that the 20 pounds belongs to his mother. David tries to distract Jacob by offering him candy, which he likes very much, but David doesn't understand an idiot. Jacob doesn't want to leave David who keeps giving him candy. George Elliot describes David's various humorous maneuvers to get away and travel to the West Indies.

Six years later, David returns to a small town in England far from his family. He takes the name Edward Freely and is determined to start a new life and be successful. He was unsuccessful in the West Indies. He opens a confectionary shop in the small town, and decides that he is going to marry the daughter of one of the town's richest men. Elliot describes how the suspicious small town people come to trust this stranger, how the women of the town give up much of their cooking and buy his goods, and how David fools the town into thinking he is from a prosperous family by putting the picture of a one-armed Navy Admiral in his shop and claiming the man is his uncle and by saying that he has another uncle in the West Indies who is very rich, has no heir, and promised him his fortune. The engagement is arranged. But, David sees a notice in the newspaper requesting him to contact an attorney from whom he will hear "something to his advantage."

David's father died and left him the 100 pounds, plus the nearly three pounds his mother promised him. David collects the money and returns to his false identity and promising future. But Jacob finds out where his candy man is living and clumsily and virtually incoherently arrives. Elliot describes this humorous arrival, the effect it has on the rich man and his daughter and the entire town, and how it affects David's plan to finally give up his confectionary business.

Brother Jacob, a short story by George Eliot, which describes a selfish young apprentice who steals money from his mother and runs away from home. He fools his idiot brother. His brother finds him steal money from his mother. David uses various humorous maneuvers to get away and travel to the West Indies. Six years later, David returns to a small town in England far from his family. He takes the name Edward Freely and is determined to start a new life and be successful. He opens a confectionary shop in the small town. But just after David gets money from his dead father and prepares to return to his false identity and promising future, Jacob finds out where his candy man is living and clumsily and virtually incoherently arrives. ThenDavid’s real identity has been revealed and he has lost everything.

Mary Anne (alternatively Mary Ann or Marian) Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and well known for their realism and psychological insight and her sophisticated character portraits.

Brother Jacob is by contrast Eliot's literary homage to Thackeray.

George Eliot is one of England's greatest novelists.

English Victorian novelist known for her sensitive and honest depiction of life and people, Marry Ann Evans wrote under the pseudonym of George Eliot. She is famous for the psychological analysis of her characters in works which are acclaimed as classics.