George Eliot

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life [Four volume set]

Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1871-1872. Very Good. Item #14504

Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1871-1872. First Edition in book form. Four octavo volumes. Bound in contemporary half morocco; five compartments to spine; lettered in gilt; marbled endpapers. Lacking half titles and errata. Uncorrected "viros nulli" to page 103, line 17 of volume II.

Boards worn along edges and joints with brief exposure to corners and heavier wear to top front corner of volume I. Front free endpaper and flyleaf of volume I and rear free endpaper of volume IV detached but present, and bindings are sound. Spotting to endpapers and title pages, though interiors largely clean an unmarked.

Overall a Very Good set of the first edition in book form of Eliot's masterpiece, which Virginia Woolf called, "the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." Scarce in retail at time of this writing.

[Baker & Ross A.10.1.a].

Price: $3,500.00