The Mill on the Floss

First edition. Second state with the inserted leaf advertising Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede, and final blank z6 to rear of vol. 1. 3 vols. 8vos. Pp. [vi], [2], 361, [1, blank], [1, ads], [3, blank]; vi, [2], 319, [1, blank]; vi, [2], 313, [1, blank], with 16pp. publisher's catalogue (citing the 'Seventh Edition' of Adam Bede) to rear of vol. 3. Original diagonal ripple-grain cinnamon cloth (Carter's binding variant "A"), boards blocked in blind, spines titled and decorated in gilt, untrimmed edges; pale yellow endpapers.

Faded patches to the fronts and edges of boards left by removal of circulating library labels, page-wide tape-repaired tear to pp. 17/18 of vol. 1 (not affecting text), some light occasional spotting, moderate shelf-wear and bumping to extremities. A Very Good, sound set overall, with a little spine lean and a couple of hinges starting (but still tight) to vol. 1.

Eliot's second full-length novel and her most autobiographical, it met with immediate critical and commercial acclaim "and within four days [of publication] had sold 4,600 copies" (ODNB). The story of estranged siblings, Maggie and Tom Tulliver, set by the river Floss in Lincolnshire, whose relationship is fractured after Maggie is "innocently but irremediably compromised" on a boat outing by her cousin's fiancé.

Largely based on the author's own strained relationship with her adored brother Isaac Evans, who strongly disapproved of his sister's cohabiting arrangements with her married lover, George Henry Lewes. Alas, the novel's bittersweet reconciliation scene of the fictional siblings' final embrace (on the way to their watery grave), was not to have its hoped-for real-life equivalence. Eliot and her brother never reconciled.

[Carter, Binding Variants, pp. 110–111; Baker & Ross A5.1.a2; Sadleir 816a; Wolff 2060]