GE to John Chapman, London, [19 December 1853]
Title
GE to John Chapman, London, [19 December 1853]
Title
GE to John Chapman, London, [19 December 1853]
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Chapman
Date(s)
- 1853-12-19
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Chapman, London, [19 December 1853]
MS: Boston Public Library. Endorsed: Miss Evans December 20, 1853. Published: More Books, 23 (September 1948), 269-270.
Private
Cambridge Street | Monday Morning.
Dear Friend
I am not well enough to go out, so that the deferring of our expedition suits me. I will take my chance of finding you disengaged if I am able to get to you tomorrow, which is very uncertain.
I cannot write anything to be added to the present notice of Mr. Lewes's book, which (the notice) seems to me likely to be a regular "mess."
The only wise thing to be done in the case, so far as I can see, would be to leave it out altogether. 418 You are not bound by any obligation that I know of, to review the book, since you go on a principle of selection not of universal registry, and certainly Mr. Huxley's notice, mitigated or unmitigated, will be of no earthly advantage either to the Westminster Review or to its readers.
So far as your duty is concerned in the matter I think reasons of delicacy would at once present themselves to the reader for your merely mentioning Mr. Lewes's book as a manual containing a brief sketch of Comte's system interspersed with commentary and criticism. Do you really think that if you had been the publisher of Mr. Lewes's book and Bohn the publisher of Miss Martineau's, Mr. Huxley would have written just so? "Tell that to the Marines." 419
Yours faithfully
Marian Evans.
MS: Boston Public Library. Endorsed: Miss Evans December 20, 1853. Published: More Books, 23 (September 1948), 269-270.
Private
Cambridge Street | Monday Morning.
Dear Friend
I am not well enough to go out, so that the deferring of our expedition suits me. I will take my chance of finding you disengaged if I am able to get to you tomorrow, which is very uncertain.
I cannot write anything to be added to the present notice of Mr. Lewes's book, which (the notice) seems to me likely to be a regular "mess."
The only wise thing to be done in the case, so far as I can see, would be to leave it out altogether. 418 You are not bound by any obligation that I know of, to review the book, since you go on a principle of selection not of universal registry, and certainly Mr. Huxley's notice, mitigated or unmitigated, will be of no earthly advantage either to the Westminster Review or to its readers.
So far as your duty is concerned in the matter I think reasons of delicacy would at once present themselves to the reader for your merely mentioning Mr. Lewes's book as a manual containing a brief sketch of Comte's system interspersed with commentary and criticism. Do you really think that if you had been the publisher of Mr. Lewes's book and Bohn the publisher of Miss Martineau's, Mr. Huxley would have written just so? "Tell that to the Marines." 419
Yours faithfully
Marian Evans.
Signature
Marian Evans.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Chapman, London, [19 December 1853], 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/92791