John Blackwood to Alexander Main, Edinburgh, 13 November 1873
Title
John Blackwood to Alexander Main, Edinburgh, 13 November 1873
Title
John Blackwood to Alexander Main, Edinburgh, 13 November 1873
Sender
John Blackwood
Recipient
Alexander Main
Date(s)
- 1873-11-13
Place
Edinburgh
Letter Content
John Blackwood to Alexander Main, Edinburgh, 13 November 1873
Text: Copy by George Simpson, Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
George Street | Edinburgh November 13. 1873.
My Dear Sir
On looking at your preface to the New Edition of George Eliot's Sayings I see two passages (See copy of proof at page 496) which would never do and these I have marked. They are not sound nor are they just to her.
I am sure that nothing could be farther from your thoughts than to say that the teaching of her, the most condensed and unsermonising of Writers, could be best and most easily approached from a Volume of Extracts such as yours, but that is how these passages may most naturally be interpreted. There was a preface to the first edition and my advice is merely to add to it the fact that the second edition is further enriched by extracts from Middlemarch with the Author's consent. 882
It is a lucky thing I looked at this preface and indeed I might not have done so as I thought you were submitting everything to Mrs. Lewes.
Yours very Truly
(signed) John Blackwood.
Alexr Main Esq.
Text: Copy by George Simpson, Yale. Hitherto unpublished.
George Street | Edinburgh November 13. 1873.
My Dear Sir
On looking at your preface to the New Edition of George Eliot's Sayings I see two passages (See copy of proof at page 496) which would never do and these I have marked. They are not sound nor are they just to her.
I am sure that nothing could be farther from your thoughts than to say that the teaching of her, the most condensed and unsermonising of Writers, could be best and most easily approached from a Volume of Extracts such as yours, but that is how these passages may most naturally be interpreted. There was a preface to the first edition and my advice is merely to add to it the fact that the second edition is further enriched by extracts from Middlemarch with the Author's consent. 882
It is a lucky thing I looked at this preface and indeed I might not have done so as I thought you were submitting everything to Mrs. Lewes.
Yours very Truly
(signed) John Blackwood.
Alexr Main Esq.
Signature
(signed) John Blackwood.
Citation
John Blackwood, John Blackwood to Alexander Main, Edinburgh, 13 November 1873, 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/95158