Eliot, George. Autograph Letter Signed to her Publisher. , 1879.

Price: US$3950.00 + shipping

Description: ["Eliot, George."] Autograph Letter Signed ("M. E. Lewes" = Marian Evans Lewes) to Mr. [Joseph] Langford [of her publisher Blackwood]. Two pages, written in purple ink on mourning stationery printed with "The Priory | 21 North Bank | Regent's Park." Dated December 17, 1879. This two-page letter, to the London manager of the publishing house of William Blackwood of Edinburgh, reads: Dear Mr. Langford I think there is no harm in allowing the said drawings to appear, since you think that they show talent. But I must have no responsibility in the matter. They must be understood to be quite apart from my book in a material sense. And therefore I must not see them. The word "illustrations" must be avoided. "Heads from T. S." -- or some such title would be allowable, but not "Heads _illustrating_" -- which might be the reverse of true. Will you kindly answer Mr. Ledebour in this sense? I shall be very happy to see you any day after 4:30. From thence to 7 o'clock I am at present invariably at home. Believe me Yours very sincerely MELewes George Eliot's last book, IMPRESSIONS OF THEOPHRASTUS SUCH, had come out earlier in 1879; a work of fiction, it is a series of eighteen character studies or "impressions" on the arts, literature, and society in general. Though the "impressions" are the author's, she presents them as if by a scholar who remains unnamed ("Theophrastus" was a disciple of Aristotle) -- whose own eccentric character is revealed by his observations. The book was not illustrated. Clearly, an illustrator named Ledebour (perhaps a son or daughter of the famous German botanical illustrator C. F. von Ledebour?) had just contacted Blackwood's, asking permission to develop a suite of illustrations referring to the characters in the book (such a thing had been done earlier, for example with characters in Dickens's novels, in fact using the phrase "Heads from."). Joseph Munt Langford (1809-1884), at Blackwood's, put the question to the author, and this is her reply. Obviously this is a devastatingly lukewarm endorsement of the idea; in any event, no such group of "heads" was ever published. This letter shows "George Eliot" very much in charge of the publication of her book, just a year after the death of her long-time common-law husband George Henry Lewes (the reason they did not marry was that he was married to someone else; his death is the reason for the mourning stationery). In May 1880 she would marry John Cross (twenty years younger than she), her first legal marriage, but in December of that year -- twelve months after writing this letter -- she died. (She was not buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey due to her "irregular" relationship with Lewes; however, in 1980, on the centenary of her death, a memorial stone was at last placed there.) The letter is in fine condition (once folded). It is published in THE GEORGE ELIOT LETTERS, edited by Gordon Haight, vii p. 229.

Seller: Sumner & Stillman [ABAA], Yarmouth, ME, U.S.A.