Lot 63: BROWNING, ROBERT.

THE RING AND THE BOOK. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 1868-69

8vo, 4 volumes, first edition, from the library of george eliot, with the Lewes Sale book-label in volume 1, original dark-green cloth, spines lettered in gilt, brown endpapers, occasional splitting between gatherings at gutter, minor spotting to endpapers and title of volumes 1 and 3, hinges of volume 1 and 2 weak, covers very slightly worn, extremities bumped

PROVENANCE

The library of George Eliot (book-label of Lewes Sale, 1923, on front pastedown of volume 1)

LITERATURE

Wise 12; Wise A Browning Library pp.27-28; William Baker, The George Eliot-George Henry Lewes Library (1977)

NOTE

an unrecorded volume from george eliot's library

After George Eliot's death in 1880, her library, incorporating that of G.H. Lewes (d.1878), came into the possession of his eldest son Charles Lee Lewes. In 1882 he gave some 2,406 of the books to Dr Williams's Library, London. Of the residue, about 1,200 books were sold by Charles's widow, Gertrude, by Messrs Foster of 54 Pall Mall (chiefly in job lots) on 15 May 1923 and a further sixty books by Sotheby's on 17 June 1923. No specific mention is made of the present volume, although it is interesting to note that Sotheby's lot 516 was Browning's inscribed copy of Dramatis Personae presented to George Eliot, and lot 515 a copy of E.B. Browning's Aurora Leigh inscribed by John Ruskin.