Eliot, George | The exceptional Bradley Martin copy of the author's first work

Property from the Workman Collection

Eliot, George

Scenes of Clerical Life. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1858

2 vols., 8vo. Half-titles. Original maroon cloth, bound by Edmonds & Remnant, with binder's ticket to lower pastedown of vol. 1, covers elaborately stamped in blind, spines gilt-lettered, brown coated endpapers. Housed in custom maroon morocco clamshell case with folding chemise. 

First edition, the Bradley Martin copy, of Eliot's first book. 

"History, we know, is apt to repeat herself, and to foist very old incidents upon us with only a slight change of costume.”

When Scenes of Clerical Life—three novellas marking Eliot's first works of fiction—was published in 1857, it was immediately recognized as "the production of a peculiar and remarkable writer" (Saturday Review). The three novellas that form Scenes are: The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton; Mr Gilfil's Love Story; and Janet's Repentance. The trio depict characters based on figures from Eliot's childhood in her home town of Nuneaton, Warwickshire. The stories also foreshadow much of Eliot's later work. The first readers of Scenes—including Dickens and Thackeray—were struck by the humorous irony, the truthfulness of the rendering of the lives of ordinary people, and the compassionate acceptance of human weakness.

A very fine copy. 

REFERENCE:

Parrish 7; Sadlier 818; Wolff 2062

PROVENANCE:

H. Bradley Martin (his sale, Sotheby's New York, 30 April - 1 May 1990, lot 2802; bookplate to folding chemise, and front pastedown of vol. 1)