George Simpson to William Blackwood, Edinburgh, 21 May 1868
Title
George Simpson to William Blackwood, Edinburgh, 21 May 1868
Title
George Simpson to William Blackwood, Edinburgh, 21 May 1868
Sender
George Simpson
Recipient
William Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1868-05-21
Place
Edinburgh
Letter Content
George Simpson to William Blackwood, Edinburgh, 21 May 1868
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Edinburgh | 21st May 1868.
My dear Sir
You will be glad to hear your Uncle is so much better. He is most unreasonable in expecting to get well all at once for the treatment was severe -- a cruelty! but he bore it heroically and must have been in first rate condition to have pulled through so easily.
You come down upon me pretty strongly about my dissatisfaction with the case for Gypsy, but I bear it with the most severe indifference, for I feel I am right in condemning the back, especially the side. I should not like to let GE get a glimpse of it.!
A Spanish or moorish style is not necessarily a heavy style. (Look at Lockhart's Spanish Ballads), 764 and if we had accepted the back we could not the side for there is no correspondence of style between them, except perhaps that little brute of a centerpiece, which is very ugly. Mr. Langford says I cannot answer her question as to when we will ship the Sheets. He never put the question but told me he would subscribe it on Monday, and I hurried forward a thousand to get packed off to day, by Rail. I have telegraphed this to him and that the price is 12/6 to which Mrs. Lewes agrees in a pleasant letter received this morning. 765 I would send you copy, but this is Queen B Day and I am alone.
I have not either been asked what colour I think George Eliot will like best. You told me you preferred the brick dust colour. 766 I liked it, but did not say anything about it till I heard more of the design. There is no time now to send us designs. I hope you and Mr. Langford will decide upon that.
She regrets so short a time has elapsed between the time she was able to let us first announce her work and publication, for the Public she finds are hardly yet aware of its being forthcoming. They are going away next week. Your uncle did well to hold fast by his first offer merely showing how much more expensive in the getup this Book was than Silas Marner, in Printing, Paper, Binding, and Advertising. So 3/- per copy on what is sold or £300 on 2000 copies remains the same as it was [The rest of this letter has not been found.]
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
Edinburgh | 21st May 1868.
My dear Sir
You will be glad to hear your Uncle is so much better. He is most unreasonable in expecting to get well all at once for the treatment was severe -- a cruelty! but he bore it heroically and must have been in first rate condition to have pulled through so easily.
You come down upon me pretty strongly about my dissatisfaction with the case for Gypsy, but I bear it with the most severe indifference, for I feel I am right in condemning the back, especially the side. I should not like to let GE get a glimpse of it.!
A Spanish or moorish style is not necessarily a heavy style. (Look at Lockhart's Spanish Ballads), 764 and if we had accepted the back we could not the side for there is no correspondence of style between them, except perhaps that little brute of a centerpiece, which is very ugly. Mr. Langford says I cannot answer her question as to when we will ship the Sheets. He never put the question but told me he would subscribe it on Monday, and I hurried forward a thousand to get packed off to day, by Rail. I have telegraphed this to him and that the price is 12/6 to which Mrs. Lewes agrees in a pleasant letter received this morning. 765 I would send you copy, but this is Queen B Day and I am alone.
I have not either been asked what colour I think George Eliot will like best. You told me you preferred the brick dust colour. 766 I liked it, but did not say anything about it till I heard more of the design. There is no time now to send us designs. I hope you and Mr. Langford will decide upon that.
She regrets so short a time has elapsed between the time she was able to let us first announce her work and publication, for the Public she finds are hardly yet aware of its being forthcoming. They are going away next week. Your uncle did well to hold fast by his first offer merely showing how much more expensive in the getup this Book was than Silas Marner, in Printing, Paper, Binding, and Advertising. So 3/- per copy on what is sold or £300 on 2000 copies remains the same as it was [The rest of this letter has not been found.]
Citation
George Simpson, George Simpson to William Blackwood, Edinburgh, 21 May 1868, 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/94255