“A SUPREME NOVELIST IN THE AGE OF GREAT NOVELISTS”: BEAUTIFUL 25-VOLUME ILLUSTRATED LARGE-PAPER EDITION OF GEORGE ELIOT’S WORKS, WITH A SIGNED AUTOGRAPH LETTER BOUND IN

ELIOT, George. The Writings. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1908. Twenty-five volumes. Octavo, contemporary full brown crushed morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated boards and spines, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut and largely unopened. $11,000.

Splendid large-paper edition of Eliot’s writings, number 29 of only 750 sets produced, with over 150 illustrations including hand-colored frontispieces in double-suite, with a signed autograph letter by Eliot bound into Volume I.

Eliot, who pioneered the method of psychological analysis characteristic of modern fiction, has been praised for the qualities that make her "a supreme novelist in an age of great novelists" (Kunitz and Haycraft, 212). The illustrations reproduce original drawings by Charles Brock, Frederick Pegram, Ambrose Dudley, Henry Paget Archibald Hartrick and others, as well as photogravures by C. E. Walmsley, many taken for this edition, of English estates and countryside featured in Eliot's writings. The frontispieces appear in double suite, one of each beautifully hand-colored. Includes all of Eliot's major novels, as well as the essays and letters. With an extensive biographical and critical notice. The autograph letter, signed by Eliot (with her actual name, Marian Evans), reads: "1 Sydney Place Dover. March 20, 1855. Dear Friend, I wrote to you in a hurry the other day. I had not time to express what I really feel—thorough sympathy with you under this terrible trial of illness. Indeed in my first hasty reading of your letter I did not fully bring before myself the meaning of the words 'three weeks in bed from disease of the left lung.' But now I do so, I am grieved to think of what you must have suffered, so I write this note from old friendship, ___ with ___ to tell you how sincerely I shall be interested to know of your progress towards health. I suppose I shall be in London before long, but any news of you before then would be very welcome. There is no use in this letter, to be sure, but I couldn't help writing it. Perhaps after all it may do you a little good to know that you have the hearty interest and friendship of Marian Evans."

Fine condition.