GE to John Blackwood, London, 28 July 1868
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 28 July 1868
Title
GE to John Blackwood, London, 28 July 1868
Sender
George Eliot
Recipient
John Blackwood
Date(s)
- 1868-07-28
Place
London
Letter Content
GE to John Blackwood, London, 28 July 1868
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extract published: Cross, III, 55.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
July 28. 68.
My dear Sir
Mr. Lewes thinks it will not be judicious to let the poem be out of print, but the number of a 2d edition must be chiefly determined by the rate of slackening which you mention in the recent sale. You intended apparently to inclose a list of sales, but you forgot to do so. It would be an advantage to advertise a second edition of the book, as the outlying public is large and slow. But since you have kept up the type would it not do to print 250? On this point you are the best judge. I have always a horror of unsold copies. We both are pleasantly surprized that the sale has been so rapid. I shall immediately look through the volume for the purpose of small corrections, and will send them to you very shortly -- perhaps on Thursday.
As to the Reviews, we expected them to be written by omniscient personages, but we did not expect so bad a review as that Mr. Lewes found in the Pall Mall. 795 I have read no notice except that in the Spectator, 796 which was modest in tone. Mr. Lewes went yesterday to the London Library and was amazed to see what he thinks the best literary notice of the poem, that has come before him, in the Athenaeum. A very silly gentleman, he says, undertakes to admonish me in the Westminster. 797 After all, I think there would have been good reason to doubt that the poem had either novelty or any other considerable intrinsic reason to justify its being written, if the periodicals had cried out "Hosanna!" I am sure you appreciate all the conditions better than I can, after your long experience of the relations between authors and critics. I am serene, because I only expected the unfavourable.
Thank you for the picture of the midnight arrival with the bull-dog.
Today the heat is so great that it is hardly possible even to read a book that requires any thought. London is a bad exchange for the mountains.
Ever yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
John Blackwood Esq.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Extract published: Cross, III, 55.
The Priory, | 21. North Bank, | Regents Park.
July 28. 68.
My dear Sir
Mr. Lewes thinks it will not be judicious to let the poem be out of print, but the number of a 2d edition must be chiefly determined by the rate of slackening which you mention in the recent sale. You intended apparently to inclose a list of sales, but you forgot to do so. It would be an advantage to advertise a second edition of the book, as the outlying public is large and slow. But since you have kept up the type would it not do to print 250? On this point you are the best judge. I have always a horror of unsold copies. We both are pleasantly surprized that the sale has been so rapid. I shall immediately look through the volume for the purpose of small corrections, and will send them to you very shortly -- perhaps on Thursday.
As to the Reviews, we expected them to be written by omniscient personages, but we did not expect so bad a review as that Mr. Lewes found in the Pall Mall. 795 I have read no notice except that in the Spectator, 796 which was modest in tone. Mr. Lewes went yesterday to the London Library and was amazed to see what he thinks the best literary notice of the poem, that has come before him, in the Athenaeum. A very silly gentleman, he says, undertakes to admonish me in the Westminster. 797 After all, I think there would have been good reason to doubt that the poem had either novelty or any other considerable intrinsic reason to justify its being written, if the periodicals had cried out "Hosanna!" I am sure you appreciate all the conditions better than I can, after your long experience of the relations between authors and critics. I am serene, because I only expected the unfavourable.
Thank you for the picture of the midnight arrival with the bull-dog.
Today the heat is so great that it is hardly possible even to read a book that requires any thought. London is a bad exchange for the mountains.
Ever yours truly
M. E. Lewes.
John Blackwood Esq.
Signature
M. E. Lewes.
Citation
George Eliot, GE to John Blackwood, London, 28 July 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/92667