The Mill On The Floss.
"If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge": Rare First edition of George Eliot's The Mill On The Floss; in the original publisher's cloth
The Mill On The Floss.
ELIOT, George.
$4,000.00
Item Number: 146315
Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1860.
First edition, first issue of Eliot’s most deeply autobiographical work with no inserted preliminary advertisement leaf in volume I and with the seventh edition of Adam Bede cited in the 16 pages of undated advertisements at rear of volume III. Octavo, three volumes in the publisher’s original terra cotta cloth, covers decoratively stamped in blind, spines gilt lettered. Half-titles present, 16 pages of publisher’s ads bound at the end of the third volume, without preliminary ads in the first volume, final blank in first volume (Z6) present. In very good condition. Each volume is housed in a custom half morocco slipcase. A very sharp set.
A reimagining of Eliot's strained relationship with her much-loved brother, The Mill on the Floss represents Eliot's most autobiographical work. Setting the story down on paper proved emotionally draining for the author, and on 5 March 1860, Eliot's partner, G.H. Lewes wrote to publisher John Blackwood that "Mrs. Lewes is getting her eyes redder and swollener every morning as she lives through her tragic story. But there is such a strain of poetry to relieve the tragedy that the more she cries, and the readers cry, the better say I."
