George. Felix Holt. The Radical.

by ELIOT

£1,500 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

ELIOT, George. Felix Holt. The Radical. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons . 1866. Three vols, 8vo. Original brick red publisher’s cloth, embossed in blind to boards, lettered and decorated in gilt to spines; pale yellow endpapers; pp. I: [v], 2-303, [1]; II: [v], 2-290; III: [v], 2-283, [1], [4, ads], half-titles present in all three volumes; slight lean to all three volumes, with some rubbing to edges and extremities, and dustiness to the upper edge, hinges reinforced with conservation tape; internally, save for the odd spot, very clean, with occasional light corner creasing; hinges expertly strengthened; pp. 26-27 of vol. III roughly opened; a very good set; bookseller’s ticket ‘Myers Co. … London’, W1’ to front pastedown of vol. I; ownership signature of Francis Ley of Epperstone Manor in ink to prelims of vols I-II ( see below ), with purple ink stamps to front free endpaper of vol. II. First edition of George Eliot’s fourth novel, in Carter’s binding variant ‘B’. Felix Holt is a social novel, romance, and tragedy set against the political upheavals surrounding the Reform Act of 1832. At its centre are Harold Transome, a wealthy young landowner whose decision to stand for Parliament as a radical scandalises his community; Felix Holt, an idealistic and uncompromising advocate of working-class education; and Esther Lyon, the local clergyman’s daughter, who finds herself torn between the two men. Published in 1866, after the success of The Mill on the Floss an

• Binding: Hardcover

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