AGATHA.
Pp. 16(plus numerous binder's blanks); cr. 8vo; bound by Laura Young in 1973 (according to a loosely inserted handwritten note) in half navy morocco, lettered and ruled in gilt, blue cloth boards, edges a trifle rubbed; t.e.g.; marbled endpapers, a little light browning of edges, the title page faintly soiled; Trubner & Co., London, 1869[c.1920?] Baker & Ross B5.3; Parrish, pp. 24-5; Todd 156c.3. *A counterfeit of the Wiseian forgery, probably printed in America in the 1920s. (Baker & Ross suggest the late 1920s, but a pencilled price and date of 1920 on the blank preliminary leaf in this copy could mean it was slightly earlier). Thomas Wise, probably in collaboration with Buxton Forman, produced a forgery of the original George Eliot pamphlet around 1889. (Wise later claimed that it was 'seen through the press on behalf of the authoress by Mr. Buxton Forman' [Ashley Library Catalogue, Volume II, 1922]. Agatha is one of the few genuine titles forged by Wise, instead of his preferred method of 'inventing' a first edition. George Eliot wrote the poem after a visit to a peasant's cottage at St. Margen in the summer of 1868, and it was first published in America, in The Atlantic Monthly in August 1869. For British copyright, a few copies were printed in London in pamphlet form. Parrish [page 25] provides a long list of textual differences between the genuine pamphlet and the two forgeries. Baker & Ross argue that the present edition was copied from the Wiseian forgery 'since it agrees in four instances (notably with the added comma for 'behind' [page 11]), whereas its only agreements with 'A' [the genuine original] are in 'garden gate' [page 5]. Carter & Pollard 'had no opportunity' to examine the later forgery, but the present copy is clearly printed on different paper to the Wiseian forgery. (It is also slightly smaller, although this could be due to trimming during binding). Item #157031
Price: $750.00