First edition of Eliot's fable in realist dress, a model of the best of Victorian fiction and "a perfect prose idyll" (Thompson, 804).
Near fine.
Price: $4,000.00
"[A]s perfect a work of prose fiction as any in the language, a small miracle" — Walter Allen
The idea for Eliot's only one-volume novel came "quite suddenly, as a sort of legendary tale" suggested by her childhood memory of seeing a weaver. By degrees she "became inclined to a more realistic treatment," though a kernel of fantasy remains under the careful working-out of ethical and material realities. SILAS MARNER is one of the few novels consistently called perfect by critics. It has been hailed as "the most flawless of George Eliot's works" (Joan Bennett), a "model of construction," making it a perennial favorite in schools: "every student should read it, if he never reads anything else of the author's" (Miller, 526). As such, its rippling impacts have been immense and widespread. A lovely copy of one of very few 19th-century novels to inspire both a Steve Martin comedy and an episode of PBS's Wishbone (A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE and "Golden Retrieved," respectively).
Read more: Bloom (ed.), George Eliot's Silas Marner; Thompson, A History of English Literature; Miller, English Literature.
Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1861. 7.5'' x 5''. Original embossed russet cloth, gilt-stamped spine. Binding A (Carter). Most leaves unopened. Publisher's ad for Alexander Carlyle at front; Blackwood catalogue at rear. [4], [6], 364, 16 pages. Binder ticker to rear pastedown. Only mild edgewear and bumping to extremities.
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