John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 8 February 1877
Title
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 8 February 1877
Title
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 8 February 1877
Sender
John Blackwood
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1877-02-08
Place
Edinburgh
Letter Content
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 8 February 1877
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
George Street, | Edinburgh.
February 8/77.
My Dear Mrs. Lewes
I should have answered your very interesting letter sooner had I not been very busy and also rather unwell, two things which do not suit each other. The last few fine days however have made me much better and we have had a talk here over the Novels.
I most cordially agree with you as to including Romola in the uniform cheap edition of your Works. Smith and Elder's 2/6 edition, which I suppose they are entitled to go on with, will doubtless interfere with the sale, but we must hope the handsome uniform edition will hold its own.
Seeing that there is this cheaper edition and that it would be a little confusing to have Romola 4/ while Adam Bede and the Mill were 3/6 I doubt about going beyond latter price, and perhaps it will be better to meet the difference in thickness partially by putting a little more into the page of Romola which the public would hardly perceive. As to illustrations we are of one mind, and if Mrs. Allingham can satisfy you let us try her. Will you or Lewes speak to her on the subject? Bear in mind that the book will not bear much expense in that way, and I think we should not attempt more than two or three illustrations to Romola.
The two illustrations you justly denounce in Adam shall be burked in future 'abeditions'bb reprints. Silas Marner is such a perfect thing that I incline to keep it a small volume by itself and rather to make the Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob another thin volume. 606 What you say of reading Romola after an interval of ten years is very striking and adds another proof to many I have seen that your books are the permanent work of your heart and will be permanent in the heart of the world. I had a remarkable instance of this in a letter this morning from my dear old friend Mr. Brown, who has so long been chief reader and corrector of press with us and whom I think I introduced to Lewes when he was in Edinburgh. He came into my father's house when he was a boy and has been with us all these 'ab45'bb 47 years and is now about 60 or 61 years old. I am in great grief about him as for many months he has been confined to the house by a most painful illness which threatens to prove chronic in the stomach. It is most touching to see how the true gentle nature of the man comes out in his illness and I have seen him many a time much more impatient and complaining over a printer's blunder than he is in the midst of all his sufferings. It seems a relief to him to write a long letter to Mr. Simpson or some of us here every morning and the following is [an] extract from his letter today which will I am sure affect you. Speaking of a Novel he had been reading he says "George Eliot's I don't rank as Novels but as second Bibles. I think I never enjoyed anything so much. You never think or feel you are reading fiction, but biography told with the most exquisite simplicity, and biography of people into whose minds and hearts you can enter with the intensest sympathy. Such books are worth nine tenths of the Sermons ever preached or published and they must be dull both in mind and soul who can read them without feeling the better for them." I quite agree with him.
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
George Street, | Edinburgh.
February 8/77.
My Dear Mrs. Lewes
I should have answered your very interesting letter sooner had I not been very busy and also rather unwell, two things which do not suit each other. The last few fine days however have made me much better and we have had a talk here over the Novels.
I most cordially agree with you as to including Romola in the uniform cheap edition of your Works. Smith and Elder's 2/6 edition, which I suppose they are entitled to go on with, will doubtless interfere with the sale, but we must hope the handsome uniform edition will hold its own.
Seeing that there is this cheaper edition and that it would be a little confusing to have Romola 4/ while Adam Bede and the Mill were 3/6 I doubt about going beyond latter price, and perhaps it will be better to meet the difference in thickness partially by putting a little more into the page of Romola which the public would hardly perceive. As to illustrations we are of one mind, and if Mrs. Allingham can satisfy you let us try her. Will you or Lewes speak to her on the subject? Bear in mind that the book will not bear much expense in that way, and I think we should not attempt more than two or three illustrations to Romola.
The two illustrations you justly denounce in Adam shall be burked in future 'abeditions'bb reprints. Silas Marner is such a perfect thing that I incline to keep it a small volume by itself and rather to make the Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob another thin volume. 606 What you say of reading Romola after an interval of ten years is very striking and adds another proof to many I have seen that your books are the permanent work of your heart and will be permanent in the heart of the world. I had a remarkable instance of this in a letter this morning from my dear old friend Mr. Brown, who has so long been chief reader and corrector of press with us and whom I think I introduced to Lewes when he was in Edinburgh. He came into my father's house when he was a boy and has been with us all these 'ab45'bb 47 years and is now about 60 or 61 years old. I am in great grief about him as for many months he has been confined to the house by a most painful illness which threatens to prove chronic in the stomach. It is most touching to see how the true gentle nature of the man comes out in his illness and I have seen him many a time much more impatient and complaining over a printer's blunder than he is in the midst of all his sufferings. It seems a relief to him to write a long letter to Mr. Simpson or some of us here every morning and the following is [an] extract from his letter today which will I am sure affect you. Speaking of a Novel he had been reading he says "George Eliot's I don't rank as Novels but as second Bibles. I think I never enjoyed anything so much. You never think or feel you are reading fiction, but biography told with the most exquisite simplicity, and biography of people into whose minds and hearts you can enter with the intensest sympathy. Such books are worth nine tenths of the Sermons ever preached or published and they must be dull both in mind and soul who can read them without feeling the better for them." I quite agree with him.
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
Signature
John Blackwood.
Citation
John Blackwood, John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 8 February 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/95295