2 George Moore first editions are documented on this shelf, from A Mummer's Wife (1885) to Esther Waters (1894) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that George Moore 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 Moore copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

A Mummer's Wife — 1885 · Henry VizetellyFirst published by Henry Vizetelly in 1885 as a single volume in the publisher's 'Vizetelly's One-Volume Novels' series, a deliberate break from the standard three-volume, library-priced format that Moore and Vizetelly used to help bypass Mudie's circulating library. W. B. Yeats later called it the first Naturalist novel in English; Mudie's refused to stock it and W. H. Smith would not carry it on their…. Moore revised the text for later reprints, including a revised edition current by 1917; the unrevised single-volume 1885 Vizetelly text is the first edition.
Esther Waters — 1894 · Walter Scott, Ltd.First published in March 1894 by the Walter Scott Publishing Co. (headquartered in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with London offices); the novel was refused by Mudie's and W. H. Smith's circulating libraries on moral grounds. A first-impression copy is bound in green cloth with gilt lettering on the spine and front cover only, with no further cover decoration, and collates [vi], 377, [1 blank], [2 ads for Moore's other…. No American edition appeared in 1894: Moore's preface recounts that the novel was declined by three American publishers, and the first American edition did not appear until 1899 (Herbert S. Stone & Co., Chicago), by which time Moore had revised the text; no US printing has priority over the 1894 Walter Scott London edition. Moore revised the text repeatedly after 1894, beginning with the 1899 American printing; later reprints follow the revised wording, not the original 1894 Walter Scott text.

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

← All authors · All genres · part of the First-Edition Identification resource.