GE to John Blackwood, London, 29 March 1877
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 29 March 1877
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 29 March 1877
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1877-03-29
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, 29 March 1877
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
March 29. 77.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
Our edition of Fielding is dated 1871 and is fathered or godfathered by Bickers and Son and H. Sotheran and Co. It consists of eleven volumes, two of which are taken up by Tom Jones, and the eleventh is a very thin one. 633
Before your letter arrived I was going to tell you of a small experience which had shaken my admiration for the 8vo in relation to imaginative works. We went the other day to choose a complete edition of Tennyson -- rather in a hurry, because the poet was coming to read to us, and we did not possess quite everything he had written. So we turned into Bumpus's where we could have the various editions displayed to us. We asked first for the Library Edition, meaning to be rather grand, but when a volume of it was put into our hands we were disgusted with its weight and unmanageableness and turned with relief to the next size in five volumes, perhaps a trifle larger than your [Port Royal Logic.] Since then I have been feeling the advantage of your former idea, that our new edition should have the existing type printed on finer, tinted paper, with more margin and with a nice bit of landscape to each volume. And if you think the volumes need not be all of the same price, or approximately alike in thickness, might not the 2 volumes of poetry be issued in the series? Then there would be a handsome row. To this, however, there may be some obstacle of which I am not sufficiently aware -- though, if it were desirable that the actual form of the poems should be continued, I suppose the varying editions might run on together. It would certainly be an advantage to have all the works range perfectly together.
There is no shame in being shilly-shally before any practical step has been taken, and being in committee we shall all do well to consider and reconsider. I don't know that I have any other idea to contribute, except that I think an olive green something like the [Abode of Snow] would be a good colour to distinguish the new edition from the cheaper, and that to my fancy it does not answer to put the vignette of the title-page in gold on the outside. The little tondi on the covers of the 3/6 edition are charming.
The loss of Mr. Brown must make a sad breach for you in the long-valued associations of your life. We are grieving for the loss of a newer but also valued friend -- Mrs. Nassau Senior, 634 that fair, bright useful woman whom, I remember, Mr. William Blackwood met at our house one day and accompanied or rather conducted helpfully to some destination, finding en route that she was the daughter of an old friend of your family.
I take an intense interest in foreign politics just now, and shall care much to read the article you mention on the French army. By the way I forgot to tell you of my gratitude to the writer of the article on the House of Commons a month or two ago. 635 It was thoroughly well done. I heard a lawyer who has mounted to the House of Lords say that he found it a dreadfully dull place after the Commons. But the Eastern Question, with Lord Beaconsfield's new presence, 636 made a flash of vivacity a little while ago.
We are very glad that you are coming to town before very long. My health is improving at last, and I am beginning to feel myself more alive. Best regards to Mr. William and to Mr. Simpson, to whose judgment I commend my imperfect notions in relation to saleableness. I hope you will enjoy your Easter holiday at N. Berwick.
Yours always truly
M. E. Lewes.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
March 29. 77.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
Our edition of Fielding is dated 1871 and is fathered or godfathered by Bickers and Son and H. Sotheran and Co. It consists of eleven volumes, two of which are taken up by Tom Jones, and the eleventh is a very thin one. 633
Before your letter arrived I was going to tell you of a small experience which had shaken my admiration for the 8vo in relation to imaginative works. We went the other day to choose a complete edition of Tennyson -- rather in a hurry, because the poet was coming to read to us, and we did not possess quite everything he had written. So we turned into Bumpus's where we could have the various editions displayed to us. We asked first for the Library Edition, meaning to be rather grand, but when a volume of it was put into our hands we were disgusted with its weight and unmanageableness and turned with relief to the next size in five volumes, perhaps a trifle larger than your [Port Royal Logic.] Since then I have been feeling the advantage of your former idea, that our new edition should have the existing type printed on finer, tinted paper, with more margin and with a nice bit of landscape to each volume. And if you think the volumes need not be all of the same price, or approximately alike in thickness, might not the 2 volumes of poetry be issued in the series? Then there would be a handsome row. To this, however, there may be some obstacle of which I am not sufficiently aware -- though, if it were desirable that the actual form of the poems should be continued, I suppose the varying editions might run on together. It would certainly be an advantage to have all the works range perfectly together.
There is no shame in being shilly-shally before any practical step has been taken, and being in committee we shall all do well to consider and reconsider. I don't know that I have any other idea to contribute, except that I think an olive green something like the [Abode of Snow] would be a good colour to distinguish the new edition from the cheaper, and that to my fancy it does not answer to put the vignette of the title-page in gold on the outside. The little tondi on the covers of the 3/6 edition are charming.
The loss of Mr. Brown must make a sad breach for you in the long-valued associations of your life. We are grieving for the loss of a newer but also valued friend -- Mrs. Nassau Senior, 634 that fair, bright useful woman whom, I remember, Mr. William Blackwood met at our house one day and accompanied or rather conducted helpfully to some destination, finding en route that she was the daughter of an old friend of your family.
I take an intense interest in foreign politics just now, and shall care much to read the article you mention on the French army. By the way I forgot to tell you of my gratitude to the writer of the article on the House of Commons a month or two ago. 635 It was thoroughly well done. I heard a lawyer who has mounted to the House of Lords say that he found it a dreadfully dull place after the Commons. But the Eastern Question, with Lord Beaconsfield's new presence, 636 made a flash of vivacity a little while ago.
We are very glad that you are coming to town before very long. My health is improving at last, and I am beginning to feel myself more alive. Best regards to Mr. William and to Mr. Simpson, to whose judgment I commend my imperfect notions in relation to saleableness. I hope you will enjoy your Easter holiday at N. Berwick.
Yours always truly
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, 29 March 1877, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://www.georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/92669