
GEORGE ELIOT'S FIRST BOOK
(ELIOT, George). STRAUSS, David Friedrich. The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined by... Translated from the Fourth German Edition.
London: Chapman, Brothers, 1846. In three volumes. First edition in English. Translated by Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot). Tall 8vo., original dark grayish green vertical ribbed cloth, boards blocked in blind with a decorative border, and within it, an irregular oval design, with an oval element within it, xix, (xx blank), 423, (424) blank, with 16pp catalogue in volume one; vii, (viii -blank), 454; viii, 446pp. With the half-titles.
Some wear to the foot of the spines, head of the spine of volume one has small split with a touch of wear, spines very slightly faded, a couple of small marks on the upper cover of volume three but in fact a near fine set in the original cloth. Scarce in original cloth and scarce in nice condition. The Jarndyce Catalogue - George Eliot in the Original Cloth (1988) offered a rebound copy thus; "very scarce rebound, even more so in cloth". Jarndyce goes on to say the only copy they had seen in original cloth was catalogued by Ximenes, described as in green cloth (as is ours). Parrish's "Victorian Lady Novelists" describes two bindings giving precedence to this green binding with the catalogue.
This work, first published in German in 1835 aroused a great deal of interest and went through four editions before 1840. Joseph Parkes, the radical politician and his friends sponsored the cost of publication and translation, first undertaken by Elizabeth Rebecca Brabant in 1843. By 1844 she decided that the task was too difficult and offered it to Mary Anne Evans who took two and a half years to complete the translation. "It proved indeed difficult with densely textured German interspersed with quotations in Latin, Greek and Hebrew."
This was Eliot's first published work, Baker & Ross A1.1. Not in Sadleir or Wolff, neither of whom bought the non-fiction of their authors.
$11000.00 (CAD)
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