FIRST EDITION OF GEORGE ELIOT'S THE LEGEND OF JUBAL AND OTHER POEMS, 1874, HANDSOMELY BOUND

ELIOT, George. The Legend of Jubal and Other Poems. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1874. Octavo, early three-quarter dark green morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $750.

First edition of Eliot's best-known collection of verse, including the famously political "The Legend of Jubal," which was written concurrently with Middlemarch, handsomely bound.

Written concurrently with Middlemarch, Eliot's "The Legend of Jubal" reflects many of the same political preoccupations. Taken in its entirety as a poetry collection, Jubal shows Eliot's skill with verse and her ease with the poetic form, despite the fact she has historically been regarded as a novelist. This work, like all of Eliot's works, displays "her penetrating sympathy, her deep knowledge of humanity, her dramatic and descriptive power, her lambent humor, the reflection of her extraordinary mind… She is one of the few to whom that overworked word 'genius' can justly be applied" (Kunitz & Haycraft, 212). Several poems from this work were originally printed in Macmillan's, The Atlantic Monthly, and Blackwood's; this was the first time this collection was printed together. With errata slip.

Fine condition, a handsome volume.