GE to John Blackwood, Wandsworth, 3 January 1860
Title
GE to John Blackwood, Wandsworth, 3 January 1860
Title
GE to John Blackwood, Wandsworth, 3 January 1860
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1860-01-03
Place
Wandsworth
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, Wandsworth, 3 January 1860
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extracts published: Cross, II, 151-153.
Holly Lodge | January 3. 1860.
My dear Sir
I never before had so pleasant a New Year's greeting 444 as your letter containing a cheque for 'a3800, for which I have to thank you today. On every ground -- including considerations that are not at all of a monetary kind -- I am deeply obliged to you and to Major Blackwood for your liberal conduct in relation to "Adam Bede."
With regard to the payments for the new book, it is of importance to me that they should rather be made in two sums of 'a31000, at six and nine months after the date of publication; and I hope this arrangement will not be inconvenient to you.
As, owing to your generous concession of the copyright of "Adam Bede," the three books will be henceforth on the same footing, we shall be delivered from further discussion as to terms.
I suppose it will be well to announce the new book in February (in Maga), will it not? We are demurring about the title. Mr. Lewes is beginning to prefer "The House of Tulliver, or, Life on the Floss," to our old notion of "Sister Maggie." "The Tullivers, or, Life on the Floss," has the advantage of slipping easily off the lazy English tongue, but it is after too common a fashion (The Newcomes, The Bertrams, etc. etc. etc.). Then, there is "The Tulliver Family, or Life on the Floss." Pray meditate and give us your opinion.
I am very anxious that the "Scenes of Clerical Life" should have every chance of impressing the public with its existence: first, because I think it of importance to the estimate of me as a writer that "Adam Bede" should not be counted as my only book; and secondly, because there are ideas presented in these stories about which I care a good deal, and am not sure that I can ever embody again. This latter reason is my private affair, but the other reason, if valid, is yours also. I wish you would thoroughly consider whether it will not be desirable for the cheaper edition of the "Scenes" to appear in advance of the cheaper edition of "Adam." Our notion is, that when the two books start together, they are apt to be rivals.
I must tell you that I had another cheering letter today besides yours: one from a person of mark in your Edinburgh 'abtown'bb University, 445 full of the very strongest words of sympathy and encouragement, hoping that my life may long be spared "to give pictures of the deeper life of this age." So I sat down to my desk with a delicious confidence that my audience is not made up of reviewers and literary clubs. If there is any truth in me that the world wants, nothing will hinder the world from drinking what it is athirst for. And if there is no needful truth in me, let me, howl as I may in the process, be hurled into the Dom Daniel, where I wish all other futile writers to sink.
Your description of the "curling" made me envy you the sight.
Hoping that this 1860 may be a white year to you and Major Blackwood, and that my new novel may help to make it so, I am ever
Yours truly
Marian Evans Lewes.
John Blackwood Esq.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extracts published: Cross, II, 151-153.
Holly Lodge | January 3. 1860.
My dear Sir
I never before had so pleasant a New Year's greeting 444 as your letter containing a cheque for 'a3800, for which I have to thank you today. On every ground -- including considerations that are not at all of a monetary kind -- I am deeply obliged to you and to Major Blackwood for your liberal conduct in relation to "Adam Bede."
With regard to the payments for the new book, it is of importance to me that they should rather be made in two sums of 'a31000, at six and nine months after the date of publication; and I hope this arrangement will not be inconvenient to you.
As, owing to your generous concession of the copyright of "Adam Bede," the three books will be henceforth on the same footing, we shall be delivered from further discussion as to terms.
I suppose it will be well to announce the new book in February (in Maga), will it not? We are demurring about the title. Mr. Lewes is beginning to prefer "The House of Tulliver, or, Life on the Floss," to our old notion of "Sister Maggie." "The Tullivers, or, Life on the Floss," has the advantage of slipping easily off the lazy English tongue, but it is after too common a fashion (The Newcomes, The Bertrams, etc. etc. etc.). Then, there is "The Tulliver Family, or Life on the Floss." Pray meditate and give us your opinion.
I am very anxious that the "Scenes of Clerical Life" should have every chance of impressing the public with its existence: first, because I think it of importance to the estimate of me as a writer that "Adam Bede" should not be counted as my only book; and secondly, because there are ideas presented in these stories about which I care a good deal, and am not sure that I can ever embody again. This latter reason is my private affair, but the other reason, if valid, is yours also. I wish you would thoroughly consider whether it will not be desirable for the cheaper edition of the "Scenes" to appear in advance of the cheaper edition of "Adam." Our notion is, that when the two books start together, they are apt to be rivals.
I must tell you that I had another cheering letter today besides yours: one from a person of mark in your Edinburgh 'abtown'bb University, 445 full of the very strongest words of sympathy and encouragement, hoping that my life may long be spared "to give pictures of the deeper life of this age." So I sat down to my desk with a delicious confidence that my audience is not made up of reviewers and literary clubs. If there is any truth in me that the world wants, nothing will hinder the world from drinking what it is athirst for. And if there is no needful truth in me, let me, howl as I may in the process, be hurled into the Dom Daniel, where I wish all other futile writers to sink.
Your description of the "curling" made me envy you the sight.
Hoping that this 1860 may be a white year to you and Major Blackwood, and that my new novel may help to make it so, I am ever
Yours truly
Marian Evans Lewes.
John Blackwood Esq.
Signature
Marian Evans Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, Wandsworth, 3 January 1860, 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/92749