1860 The Mill on the Floss

Description

First Edition, Publishers' Original Binding

First edition, first impression, first state, with no advert to Volume I.

In the original publishers cloth binding - the 'A' state binding variant.

This is the earliest issue. 

Half-title present to each volume.

Sixteen pages of adverts to the rear of Volume III.

'The Mill on the Floss' is a novel following the lives of siblings Maggie and Tom Tulliver over a period of about ten to fifteen years. The siblings live at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss. The main focus of the novel is the relationship between the two siblings, and also with the relationships - both platonic and romantic - of Maggie, with Maggie being the protagonist.

The novel shows the circumstances of these characters, and their efforts and energies to struggle against them. There is also a sense of determination throughout the novel in various characters, most especially in Mr Tullier, the sibling's parent.

It is an emotional novel, so much so that Eliot is known to have cried whilst writing the closing chapters. It is no doubt an autobiographical novel. Eliot had a fractured and strained relationship with her own brother, whom she adored. It is likely that she wrote the relationship and close bond between Maggie and Tom, wishing it to be her own relationship with her brother. Eliot's brother had broken off with her and refused contact after she told him that she was cohabiting in London with a married man.

George Eliot was the pseudonym used by the writer Mary Ann Evans. She published under a male name to escape the preconceived ideas about women's fiction during the era. Eliot is one of the best known Victorian writers, and many believe that her novel 'Middlemarch' is the greatest novel in the English Language. Her other works include 'Adam Bede', 'Romola', and 'Daniel Deronda'.