ADAM BEDE by Eliot George - 1859

Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1859. 3 volumes. First edition. 8vo., in the now very scarce publisher's original brown cloth, the boards embossed in blind, the spines gilt lettered and decorated, original yellow endpapers. [8], 325; [8], 374; [8], 333 pp., 16pp ad catalogue. Very attractive and fresh copies, the scarce original cloth unfaded with bright gilt and just a bit of wear to the tips, the hinges a bit shaken but not repaired or refurbished and as original, the text quite fresh with only very light and occasional mellowing, a superior copy of a book rarely encountered without substantial repairs, much less in the original cloth. FIRST EDITION OF GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST NOVEL, PUBLISHED WHILE ELIOT WAS STILL UNKNOWN AND IN AN EDITION OF ONLY 2100 COPIES. A copy such as this in original cloth and bright condition is quite unusual.
Immediately recognized as a significant literary work, Adam Bede has never since been out of print. From the very beginning it has enjoyed a very positive critical reputation. An anonymous review in The Athenaeum in 1859 praised it as a "novel of the highest class," and The Times called it "a first-rate novel." A review by Anne Mozley was the first to identify that the novel was probably written by a woman. Contemporary reviewers, often influenced by nostalgia for the earlier period represented in Bede, enthusiastically praised Eliot's characterizations and realistic representations of rural life. Charles Dickens wrote; "The whole country life that the story is set in, is so real, and so droll and genuine, and yet so selected and polished by art, that I cannot praise it enough to you."