George Eliot | Silas Marner, 1861, first edition, [with:] The Works, [1880]

George Eliot

21 volumes, comprising:

(i) Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe. Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1861

FIRST EDITION, 8vo (190 x 118 mm), presentation copy inscribed on half title (“with the Publisher’s Compliments”), modern half calf over marbled boards, spine gilt with raised bands in six compartments, red and green gilt-lettered morocco labels in the second and third, red speckled edges, lacking 4-page advertisement of Dr Alexander Carlyle's autobiography at front, and 16-page publisher's catalogue at end, endleaves renewed

“Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends in this way to become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of his life.”

Subtly subversive, Eliot's third novel is a deceptively simple tale that addressed themes of Victorian morals and sexuality, time and temporality, Darwinian thinking, and the philosophy of William Wordsworth.

(ii) The Works of George Eliot: Cabinet Edition. Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood and Sons, [1880]

20 volumes, 8vo (170 x 107 mm), contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spines gilt with raised bands in six compartments, red and green gilt-lettered morocco labels in the second and fourth, the rest gilt-tooled, marbled edges, extremities very lightly rubbed and bumbed

A remarkably fine set, including the later addition of Impressions of Theophrastus Such in 1880.

LITERATURE:

(i) Baker & Ross A6; Carter, p.112; Parrish, p.15; Sadleir 819; (ii) Baker & Ross E11.1