GHL to John Blackwood, London, [10? April 1872]
Title
GHL to John Blackwood, London, [10? April 1872]
Title
GHL to John Blackwood, London, [10? April 1872]
Sender
George Henry Lewes
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1872-04-10
Place
London
Letter Content
GHL to John Blackwood, London, [10? April 1872]
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
Wednesday.
My dear Blackwood
Your letter and the cheque for 500 £ arrived in due course. 506 Whatever plan of payment is most convenient to you will be acceptable to us.
We rejoice that there is no falling off in the subscription; and although (privately) I confess to a great disappointment at the result of our plan, the libraries especially having not come out as I expected they would considering they practically get the book at half price, and private persons being far more reluctant to purchase than I had looked for, yet we are both enormously gratified at the success of the plan in its deepening the impression on the minds of worthy readers by keeping the characters longer before them and not being gulped down four volumes at a sitting!
The fact is the public has got out of the habit of buying books owing to its reliance on libraries; and I believe had the price been 2/6 we should not have sold 500 more. As an illustration, I heard last week that a wife of an immensely rich manufacturer who knew Mrs. Lewes in early life and is immensely fond of bragging among her acquaintance of the fact of this old friendship, and might therefore be calculated on as a purchaser, so far from buying the book, has twice borrowed the numbers from another friend, rather poor, who does buy them! 507 Again, a lady who made Mrs. Lewes's acquaintance on the ground of her intense admiration, and whose husband is one of the richest men in all England, 508 told me that she wanted a friend of hers very much to read Romola "so I drove to Cawthorn's 509 to get it for her; but it was out; and Cawthorn told me that there was now such a run upon the early books that every one of his 30 copies of [Romola] was out; so I drove away disappointed." Thus, not only did it never occur to this lady that 2/6 would buy the book she wanted her friend to read, but it never occurred to her that such a reflection must strike me when she narrated the episode. She relied on the Library. Buying books was not in her habit. What is one to do in such a state of things?
Poor Smith! We are deeply pained. His poor wife, who worshipped him, one dreads to think of her suffering! Perhaps the last letter he ever read was one from Mrs. Lewes. 510
We hope Willie's young frame doesn't feel these changes of weather as our old ones do! Remember us both to him.
Ever yours
G. H. Lewes.
The advertisement of that English Dictionary 511 of yours makes my mouth water -- and in pursuance of the good habit of not buying, I shall ask you to give it me!
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
Wednesday.
My dear Blackwood
Your letter and the cheque for 500 £ arrived in due course. 506 Whatever plan of payment is most convenient to you will be acceptable to us.
We rejoice that there is no falling off in the subscription; and although (privately) I confess to a great disappointment at the result of our plan, the libraries especially having not come out as I expected they would considering they practically get the book at half price, and private persons being far more reluctant to purchase than I had looked for, yet we are both enormously gratified at the success of the plan in its deepening the impression on the minds of worthy readers by keeping the characters longer before them and not being gulped down four volumes at a sitting!
The fact is the public has got out of the habit of buying books owing to its reliance on libraries; and I believe had the price been 2/6 we should not have sold 500 more. As an illustration, I heard last week that a wife of an immensely rich manufacturer who knew Mrs. Lewes in early life and is immensely fond of bragging among her acquaintance of the fact of this old friendship, and might therefore be calculated on as a purchaser, so far from buying the book, has twice borrowed the numbers from another friend, rather poor, who does buy them! 507 Again, a lady who made Mrs. Lewes's acquaintance on the ground of her intense admiration, and whose husband is one of the richest men in all England, 508 told me that she wanted a friend of hers very much to read Romola "so I drove to Cawthorn's 509 to get it for her; but it was out; and Cawthorn told me that there was now such a run upon the early books that every one of his 30 copies of [Romola] was out; so I drove away disappointed." Thus, not only did it never occur to this lady that 2/6 would buy the book she wanted her friend to read, but it never occurred to her that such a reflection must strike me when she narrated the episode. She relied on the Library. Buying books was not in her habit. What is one to do in such a state of things?
Poor Smith! We are deeply pained. His poor wife, who worshipped him, one dreads to think of her suffering! Perhaps the last letter he ever read was one from Mrs. Lewes. 510
We hope Willie's young frame doesn't feel these changes of weather as our old ones do! Remember us both to him.
Ever yours
G. H. Lewes.
The advertisement of that English Dictionary 511 of yours makes my mouth water -- and in pursuance of the good habit of not buying, I shall ask you to give it me!
Signature
G. H. Lewes.
Citation
George Henry Lewes, GHL to John Blackwood, London, [10? April 1872], 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/94613