George Eliot; a Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy by George Willis Cooke
page 83 of 513 (16%)
page 83 of 513 (16%)
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was paid for its first appearance in that periodical. In a letter written
July 5, 1862, Lewes gave the true explanation. "My main object in persuading her to consent to serial publication was not the unheard-of magnificence of the offer, but the advantage to such a work of being read slowly and deliberately, instead of being galloped through in three volumes. I think it quite unique, and so will the public when it gets over the first feeling of surprise and disappointment at the book not being English and like its predecessor." The success it met with while under way in the pages of the magazine may be seen from a letter written by Lewes on December 18. "Marian lives entirely in the fifteenth century, and is much cheered every now and then by hearing indirectly how her book is appreciated by the higher class of minds, and some of the highest, though it is not, and cannot be, popular. In Florence we hear they are wild with delight and surprise at such a work being executed by a foreigner, as if an Italian had ever done anything of the kind." _Romola_ was illustrated in the _Cornhill Magazine_, and on its completion was reprinted by Smith, Elder & Co., the publishers of that periodical. The success of _Romola_ was such as to lead George Eliot to begin on another historical subject, though she was probably induced to do this much more by its fitness to her purposes than by the public reception of the novel. This time she gave her work a poetical and dramatic form. _The Spanish Gypsy_ was written in the winter of 1864-5, but was laid aside for more thorough study of the subject and for careful revision. She had previously, in 1863, written a short story in verse, founded on the pages of Bocaccio, entitled "How Lisa Loved the King." Probably other poems had also been written, but poetry had not occupied much of her attention. As a school-girl, and even after she had gone to London, she had written verses. Among these earlier attempts, it may not be unsafe to conjecture, may have been the undated poems which she has published in connection with _The |
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