John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 28 April 1873
Title
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 28 April 1873
Title
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 28 April 1873
Sender
John Blackwood
Recipient
George Eliot
Date(s)
- 1873-04-28
Place
Edinburgh
Letter Content
John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 28 April 1873
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
George Street, | Edinburgh.
April 28/73.
My Dear Mrs. Lewes
Very many thanks for your pleasant letter. I should like very much indeed to see your Sonnets on the childhood of a brother and sister. To my eyes of course my children are a pretty and moving sight as they step along together, laughing, joking, and looking gaily to the future.
I like what you say of Kenelm Chillingly greatly. In a few words you say so much and express exactly what I feel about the tone of the book. I too was deeply affected by the closing sentences and I thought even the critics would have been touched by the wind-up in such circumstances, but no, it does not seem to have touched those stern stoics. Your critic in the Quarterly is a heavy man, too wise by half, but he is friendly and means well and such a review does good.
The success of Middlemarch has given a good stimulus to the sale of the Works, and for some time Mr. Simpson has been talking to me about a reduction in price, making Adam Bede 2/6 and so on in proportion, and meeting the change of price so far by a cheaper paper with less margin and also a cheaper binding with the omitting of the blessed illustrations. Will Lewes and you turn this over in your minds and let me know what you think? I am doubtful myself.
As to the effect that such a change of price would have upon the value of the copyrights at the end of the ten years when our lease expires, I do not consider that it would affect the value to any appreciable extent.
The more your books are known the more they will sell, and that I hope will fully balance any possible forestalling of future sales. The question at the end of the ten years will be as it is now, whether we should go in for large sales at 2/6 or be content with the modest sales at 3/6.
The sales have been good and steady but never anything like what we calculated we might hope for. They stand about something as follows: Adam 14500; The Mill 8500; Felix 5800; Scenes 5000; Silas 5300. During the past year and half the influence of Middlemarch has been distinct and Adam has been moving at the rate of something like 2000 copies a year and the others in a like lesser proportion. This is something like a half more than had been selling during the recent previous years.
I hope you are going to get away to the country now. After a long term of bitter east wind we have an attempt at west wind today, but you would by no means call it the balmy west as you hurried past the corner of any of the streets that cross George St. My health I am happy to say is quite restored, and as we go to Strathtyrum on Saturday I expect to be quite robust soon.
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
MS: National Library of Scotland. Hitherto unpublished.
George Street, | Edinburgh.
April 28/73.
My Dear Mrs. Lewes
Very many thanks for your pleasant letter. I should like very much indeed to see your Sonnets on the childhood of a brother and sister. To my eyes of course my children are a pretty and moving sight as they step along together, laughing, joking, and looking gaily to the future.
I like what you say of Kenelm Chillingly greatly. In a few words you say so much and express exactly what I feel about the tone of the book. I too was deeply affected by the closing sentences and I thought even the critics would have been touched by the wind-up in such circumstances, but no, it does not seem to have touched those stern stoics. Your critic in the Quarterly is a heavy man, too wise by half, but he is friendly and means well and such a review does good.
The success of Middlemarch has given a good stimulus to the sale of the Works, and for some time Mr. Simpson has been talking to me about a reduction in price, making Adam Bede 2/6 and so on in proportion, and meeting the change of price so far by a cheaper paper with less margin and also a cheaper binding with the omitting of the blessed illustrations. Will Lewes and you turn this over in your minds and let me know what you think? I am doubtful myself.
As to the effect that such a change of price would have upon the value of the copyrights at the end of the ten years when our lease expires, I do not consider that it would affect the value to any appreciable extent.
The more your books are known the more they will sell, and that I hope will fully balance any possible forestalling of future sales. The question at the end of the ten years will be as it is now, whether we should go in for large sales at 2/6 or be content with the modest sales at 3/6.
The sales have been good and steady but never anything like what we calculated we might hope for. They stand about something as follows: Adam 14500; The Mill 8500; Felix 5800; Scenes 5000; Silas 5300. During the past year and half the influence of Middlemarch has been distinct and Adam has been moving at the rate of something like 2000 copies a year and the others in a like lesser proportion. This is something like a half more than had been selling during the recent previous years.
I hope you are going to get away to the country now. After a long term of bitter east wind we have an attempt at west wind today, but you would by no means call it the balmy west as you hurried past the corner of any of the streets that cross George St. My health I am happy to say is quite restored, and as we go to Strathtyrum on Saturday I expect to be quite robust soon.
always yours truly
John Blackwood.
Signature
John Blackwood.
Citation
John Blackwood, John Blackwood to GE, Edinburgh, 28 April 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/95252