2 George Meredith first editions are documented on this shelf, from The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of Father and Son (1859) to The Egoist (1879) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that George Meredith title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.

Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a George Meredith copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

The Ordeal of Richard Feverel: A History of Father and Son — 1859 · Chapman and HallFirst edition, three volumes, octavo (196 x 123mm), paginated iv,303; iv,348; iv,395, published by Chapman and Hall and printed by John Edward Taylor. Cited as Sadleir 1701 and Forman no. 5. Sadleir ranked this the fourth rarest of Meredith's works in original state, and Chapman and Hall left it unreprinted for nearly twenty years. The 1878 revised-text edition was issued by a different publisher, Kegan Paul, so…. The revised 1878 second English edition, published by Kegan Paul rather than Chapman and Hall, used Meredith's rewritten Tauchnitz text and must not be confused with the scarce 1859 three-volume first edition.
The Egoist — 1879 · C. Kegan Paul & Co.True first is C. Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1879, in three volumes — the standard Victorian triple-decker (Sadleir 1692). Collation: Vol. I v, 337 pp plus 2 pp advertisements; Vol. II iv, 320 pp with a 32-page publisher's catalogue dated '8.79' (August 1879); Vol. III iv, 353 pp — the dated catalogue bound into Vol. II is a useful first-issue aid, and half-titles are present. Original binding is olive-green (some…. The London Kegan Paul three-decker of 1879 is the uncontested true first (the novel ran serially in the Glasgow Weekly Herald, 21 June 1879–10 January 1880, overlapping book publication). The census note's claim that 'US Harper followed' could NOT be confirmed: no 1879 American Harper edition was located; Meredith's authorised US publisher was Roberts Brothers of Boston (a later US appearance), and the 1913 New…. Beware 'first thus' traps: single-volume, collected-edition and later trade reprints are not the 1879 three-decker, and the later de-luxe bindings bearing a gilt facsimile 'George Meredith' signature on the front board are NOT the first edition. Later issues also drop the '8.79' publisher's catalogue.

More Literary Fiction (US) & Award Winners shelves: George Moore, George Saunders, George Washington Cable, Gertrude Stein, Gilbert Sorrentino, G.K. Chesterton.

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