GE to John Blackwood, London, 23 November 1878
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 23 November 1878
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 23 November 1878
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1878-11-23
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, 23 November 1878
MS: National Library of Scotland. Mostly published: Cross, III, 341-342.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 23/78.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
When Mr. Lewes sent you my M.S. the other morning he was in that state of exhilarated activity which often comes with the sense of ease after an attack of illness which had been very painful. In the afternoon he imprudently drove out and undertook with his usual eagerness to get through numerous details of business, over-fatigued himself and took cold. The effect has been a sad amount of suffering from feverishness, headache and sickness, and I have been in deep anxiety -- am still very unhappy, and only comforted by Sir James Paget's assurance that the actual trouble will soon be allayed.
I have been telling the patient about your letter and suggestion that he should send a form of slip as advertisement for the Magazine. He says -- and the answer seems to have been a matter of premeditation with him -- that it will be better not to announce the book in this way at once -- "the Americans and Germans will be down on us." I cannot question him further at present, but I have no doubt he has been thinking about the matter, and we must not cross his wish in any way.
Will you kindly send me the calculation as to quantity as soon as you can? I thought that more than 300 pages for a volume in handsome paper might not be desirable. But you know in a work of this unkind -- in contrast with the continuous development of a story -- "il n'y a pas de raison que cela cesse," except such reason as lies outside the author's mind.
I have thought that a good form of advertisment to save people from disappointment in a book of mine not being a story, would be to print the list of Contents which, with the title, would give all but the very stupid a notice to what form of writing the work belongs. But this is a later consideration.
I am glad you were pleased with the opening.
Always yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Mostly published: Cross, III, 341-342.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
November 23/78.
My dear Mr. Blackwood
When Mr. Lewes sent you my M.S. the other morning he was in that state of exhilarated activity which often comes with the sense of ease after an attack of illness which had been very painful. In the afternoon he imprudently drove out and undertook with his usual eagerness to get through numerous details of business, over-fatigued himself and took cold. The effect has been a sad amount of suffering from feverishness, headache and sickness, and I have been in deep anxiety -- am still very unhappy, and only comforted by Sir James Paget's assurance that the actual trouble will soon be allayed.
I have been telling the patient about your letter and suggestion that he should send a form of slip as advertisement for the Magazine. He says -- and the answer seems to have been a matter of premeditation with him -- that it will be better not to announce the book in this way at once -- "the Americans and Germans will be down on us." I cannot question him further at present, but I have no doubt he has been thinking about the matter, and we must not cross his wish in any way.
Will you kindly send me the calculation as to quantity as soon as you can? I thought that more than 300 pages for a volume in handsome paper might not be desirable. But you know in a work of this unkind -- in contrast with the continuous development of a story -- "il n'y a pas de raison que cela cesse," except such reason as lies outside the author's mind.
I have thought that a good form of advertisment to save people from disappointment in a book of mine not being a story, would be to print the list of Contents which, with the title, would give all but the very stupid a notice to what form of writing the work belongs. But this is a later consideration.
I am glad you were pleased with the opening.
Always yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, 23 November 1878, 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/92650