Eliot, George [aka Mary Ann Evans] (1819-1880)
Middlemarch.

Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1871-72.

First edition in book form, four octavo volumes, with half-titles; bound in contemporary half morocco, ruled and lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled (lacking errata as usual; scattered foxing, especially at ends, occasional thumbing and pencil annotations; spines sunned, extremities rubbed with corners exposed, minor paint losses to marbled boards, a few nicks to lower board edges); 6 ¾ x 4 ½ in. (4)

Sadleir 815; Baker & Ross A10.1.a2.

Mary Ann Evans writing under her famous nom de plume, originally published her immensely successful historical novel Middlemarch in eight bimonthly installments. The undertaking was a strain, but the novel's success secured a deal to re-publish in a proper four-volume book edition. Fan girl Emily Dickinson, in a letter to her cousins wrote, "What do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory - except that in a few instances this 'mortal has already put on immortality.' George Eliot was one. The mysteries of human nature surpass the 'mysteries of redemption,' for the infinite we only suppose, while we see the finite." (See Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Robert N. Liscott, p. 304).

Condition
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Grace Meschery-McCormack, Cataloguer: gmccormack@swanngalleries.com