Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life.

ELIOT, George.

Item Number: 134227

Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1871-1872.

First edition, first issue in book form of Eliot’s masterpiece, which Virginia Woolf called, “the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.” Octavo, four volumes bound in contemporary cloth, rebacked. First issue, with uncorrected “viros nulli” Book III, Volume II, page 103, line 17. In very good condition. Rare.

Hailed by Virginia Woolf as "the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people", Eliot's Middlemarch is widely regarded as Eliot's finest work and one of the best novels written in the English language. "One of the great peaks of the 19th-century English novel: the daunting prospect of its ascent… should never deter a reader who takes pleasure in masterful characterization, moral insights and a sense of place" (An English Library, 20).