GE to John Blackwood, London, 21 October 1868
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 21 October 1868
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 21 October 1868
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1868-10-21
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, 21 October 1868
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extracts published: Cross, III, 61-62.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
October 21. 68.
My dear Sir
I think the specimen page is very pretty -- allowing, as you suggest, for a larger margin. I do not possess Aytoun's Lays, but I have used your permission to ask for a copy of Mr. Langford. -- At first Mr. Lewes said, he thought it would be well not to make the next edition dearer than Tennyson's 6s volumes. But on taking down the Idylls we saw that the volume was much thinner than mine could be, and was too shabbylooking to be a good precedent, in these early days of my less assured popularity.
Therefore I accept your proposal to bring out an edition at 7/6, and to give me a lordship of 1/6 on each copy sold. If you stereotype, I suppose it will be easy to bring out as cheap an edition as we like, by reducing the cost of paper and binding. -- I mentioned to Mr. W. Blackwood, that I should like the cover to be a deep red, like Kinglake or Col. Hamley's Operations of War, unless that colour happens to be appreciably dearer.
Ticknor and Field[s] have sent me a specimen of their edition. It is small, but handsomely got up, for a dollar [and] a half. 825 They allow me a shilling on each copy, and have already sold more than 5000. I am happy in having fallen into honourable hands across the Atlantic, where dishonourable hands are abundant.
With regard to your obliging proposition about payment, the turn of the year will do quite well for me.
I have gone through the Poem twice for the sake of revision, and have a crop of small corrections -- only in one case extending to the insertion of a new line. But I wish to see the proof sheets, so that "revised by the author" may be put in the advertisement and on the titlepage. I will send the sheets of corrections to Mr. Simpson with the request for the transmission of proofs.
Unhappily my health has been unusually bad since we returned from abroad, so that the time has been a good deal wasted on the endurance of malaise, but I am brooding over many things, and hope that coming months will not be barren. As to the criticisms, I suppose that better poets than I have gone through worse receptions. In spite of my reason and of my low expectations, I am too susceptible to all discouragement not to have been depressingly affected by some few things in the shape of criticism which I have been obliged to know. Yet I am ashamed of caring about anything that cannot be taken as strict evidence against the value of my book. So far as I have been able to understand, there is a striking disagreement among the reviewers as to what is best or what is worst; and the weight of agreement even on the latter point is considerably diminished by the reflection that three different reviews may be three different phases of the same gentleman, taking the opportunity of earning as many guineas as he can by making easy remarks on George Eliot. But as dear Scott's characters say, "Let that fly stick i' the wa' -- when the dirt's dry it'll rub out." 826
I shall look at "Doubles or Quits" as you recommend. I read the two first numbers of Madame Aurelia 827 and thought them promising.
I sympathize with your melancholy at the prospect of quitting the country, though compared with London, beautiful Edinburgh is country. Perhaps some good thick mists will come to reconcile you with the migration. We have been using the fine autumn days for flights into Surrey, 828 between Sundays. The rich woods about Sevenoaks and Chiselhurst are a delight to the eyes, and the stillness is a rest to every nerve.
Always yours sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
Mr. Lewes sends his kind regards and will be very glad to see himself painted -- not too black.
John Blackwood Esq.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extracts published: Cross, III, 61-62.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
October 21. 68.
My dear Sir
I think the specimen page is very pretty -- allowing, as you suggest, for a larger margin. I do not possess Aytoun's Lays, but I have used your permission to ask for a copy of Mr. Langford. -- At first Mr. Lewes said, he thought it would be well not to make the next edition dearer than Tennyson's 6s volumes. But on taking down the Idylls we saw that the volume was much thinner than mine could be, and was too shabbylooking to be a good precedent, in these early days of my less assured popularity.
Therefore I accept your proposal to bring out an edition at 7/6, and to give me a lordship of 1/6 on each copy sold. If you stereotype, I suppose it will be easy to bring out as cheap an edition as we like, by reducing the cost of paper and binding. -- I mentioned to Mr. W. Blackwood, that I should like the cover to be a deep red, like Kinglake or Col. Hamley's Operations of War, unless that colour happens to be appreciably dearer.
Ticknor and Field[s] have sent me a specimen of their edition. It is small, but handsomely got up, for a dollar [and] a half. 825 They allow me a shilling on each copy, and have already sold more than 5000. I am happy in having fallen into honourable hands across the Atlantic, where dishonourable hands are abundant.
With regard to your obliging proposition about payment, the turn of the year will do quite well for me.
I have gone through the Poem twice for the sake of revision, and have a crop of small corrections -- only in one case extending to the insertion of a new line. But I wish to see the proof sheets, so that "revised by the author" may be put in the advertisement and on the titlepage. I will send the sheets of corrections to Mr. Simpson with the request for the transmission of proofs.
Unhappily my health has been unusually bad since we returned from abroad, so that the time has been a good deal wasted on the endurance of malaise, but I am brooding over many things, and hope that coming months will not be barren. As to the criticisms, I suppose that better poets than I have gone through worse receptions. In spite of my reason and of my low expectations, I am too susceptible to all discouragement not to have been depressingly affected by some few things in the shape of criticism which I have been obliged to know. Yet I am ashamed of caring about anything that cannot be taken as strict evidence against the value of my book. So far as I have been able to understand, there is a striking disagreement among the reviewers as to what is best or what is worst; and the weight of agreement even on the latter point is considerably diminished by the reflection that three different reviews may be three different phases of the same gentleman, taking the opportunity of earning as many guineas as he can by making easy remarks on George Eliot. But as dear Scott's characters say, "Let that fly stick i' the wa' -- when the dirt's dry it'll rub out." 826
I shall look at "Doubles or Quits" as you recommend. I read the two first numbers of Madame Aurelia 827 and thought them promising.
I sympathize with your melancholy at the prospect of quitting the country, though compared with London, beautiful Edinburgh is country. Perhaps some good thick mists will come to reconcile you with the migration. We have been using the fine autumn days for flights into Surrey, 828 between Sundays. The rich woods about Sevenoaks and Chiselhurst are a delight to the eyes, and the stillness is a rest to every nerve.
Always yours sincerely
M. E. Lewes.
Mr. Lewes sends his kind regards and will be very glad to see himself painted -- not too black.
John Blackwood Esq.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, 21 October 1868, Complete George Eliot Letters(2026), George Eliot Archive, edited by Beverley Park Rilett. https://GeorgeEliotArchive.org, Accessed September 7, 2026. https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/92642