John Blackwood to GHL, St. Andrews, 28 October 1876
Title
John Blackwood to GHL, St. Andrews, 28 October 1876
Title
John Blackwood to GHL, St. Andrews, 28 October 1876
Sender
John Blackwood
Recipient
George Henry Lewes
Date(s)
- 1876-10-28
Place
St. Andrews
Letter Content
John Blackwood to GHL, St. Andrews, 28 October 1876
Text: Copy in Blackwood Letter Book. Hitherto unpublished.
Strathtyrum | St. Andrews October 28/76.
My dear Lewes
I had much pleasure in receiving your Letter which leaves me little doubt that we shall arrange about the work to the satisfaction of all concerned.
I am not surprised that you put the question about the contingency of an additional £500 on the sale of 2000 sets mentioned in my letter making the offer ten years ago. 550 Some time back I said to Willie who had copied it "Why you must have made a blunder in copying; I intended twenty thousand sets," and I never doubted that I had so written. Now it turns out that the blunder is my own, but how such a blunder could have escaped both myself and copyist I cannot understand. I meant not an average sale per year but an average sale of the volumes overhead in that number of years for which 2000 would have been an absurdly inadequate figure. Simpson and Willie both think now they must have taken it up as a yearly average and that seems to be your impression.
Anyway the mistake is clearly mine and I ought to suffer. I would not grudge it a bit especially on books with which we have been so successful but I see that this £500 will sweep up the whole publisher's profit on this long transaction and the idea running in my head that we could afford to pay £500 when we had sold 20000 sets was obviously a fair one. In regard to what you say of the success, admirable and recuperative as the sales have been since the publication of Middlemarch, you will see that the total number sold is still some 8000 volumes short of the numbers on which we based our estimate. You should have heard from me sooner but I was perplexed when I saw by your letter that
I must have made a stupid blunder and I had to communicate with Edinbr. to see whether they could clear it up there.
ever yours truly
(Signed) John Blackwood.
G. H. Lewes Esq.
Text: Copy in Blackwood Letter Book. Hitherto unpublished.
Strathtyrum | St. Andrews October 28/76.
My dear Lewes
I had much pleasure in receiving your Letter which leaves me little doubt that we shall arrange about the work to the satisfaction of all concerned.
I am not surprised that you put the question about the contingency of an additional £500 on the sale of 2000 sets mentioned in my letter making the offer ten years ago. 550 Some time back I said to Willie who had copied it "Why you must have made a blunder in copying; I intended twenty thousand sets," and I never doubted that I had so written. Now it turns out that the blunder is my own, but how such a blunder could have escaped both myself and copyist I cannot understand. I meant not an average sale per year but an average sale of the volumes overhead in that number of years for which 2000 would have been an absurdly inadequate figure. Simpson and Willie both think now they must have taken it up as a yearly average and that seems to be your impression.
Anyway the mistake is clearly mine and I ought to suffer. I would not grudge it a bit especially on books with which we have been so successful but I see that this £500 will sweep up the whole publisher's profit on this long transaction and the idea running in my head that we could afford to pay £500 when we had sold 20000 sets was obviously a fair one. In regard to what you say of the success, admirable and recuperative as the sales have been since the publication of Middlemarch, you will see that the total number sold is still some 8000 volumes short of the numbers on which we based our estimate. You should have heard from me sooner but I was perplexed when I saw by your letter that
I must have made a stupid blunder and I had to communicate with Edinbr. to see whether they could clear it up there.
ever yours truly
(Signed) John Blackwood.
G. H. Lewes Esq.
Signature
(Signed) John Blackwood.
Citation
John Blackwood, John Blackwood to GHL, St. Andrews, 28 October 1876, 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/95440