[A set of first editions.] de Eliot, George - 1858

Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1858. First book editions, 25 volumes in all; 8vo, bound without advertisements in contemporary full brown pebble-grain morocco, triple gilt borers on covers with ornaments on the corners, gilt-lettered labels on gilt-paneled spines, a.e.g.; the spines are darkened, and the joints and extremities occasionally rubbed; good and sound. Half titles are present in all except for the first four, as listed below. Ostensibly the set of Eliot's works owned by her husband G[eorge] H[enry] Lewes, with his ownership signature on the title page of the first volume. DNB notes: "Lewes was a man of extraordinary versatility, and acuteness, a most brilliant talker, and full of restless energy. His devotion to her was unfailing and unstinted; he was the warmest, as well as the most valued, admirer of her writings, suggested and criticised, undertook all business matters with publishers, and (judiciously or otherwise) kept reviews from her sight." This set includes Scenes of Clerical Life, 2 vols., 1858, with the ownership signature "G.H. Lewes" in the top corner; Adam Bede, 3 vols., 1859, with penciled math on verso of last leaf in vol. 1; The Mill on the Floss, 3 vols., 1860, with a light pencil marking "Lewes" at the top of vol. 3 (perhaps a binder's note); Silas Marner, 1861; Romola, 3 vols., 1863; Romola, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1865, "Illustrated Edition"; Felix Holt, 3 vols., 1866; The Spanish Gypsy, 1868, taller 8vo, and bound in contemporary calf but rebacked to match the rest of the set; Middlemarch, 4 vols., 1871, errata slip in vol. 1, with a pencil insertion in the penultimate line of p. 408 in the first volume; Daniel Deronda, 4 vols., 1876, errata slip in vol. 3, with 2 small pencil corrections in vol. 3 on p. 174 and 213, and one more on p. 77 of vol. 4.