# Is "Scenes of Clerical Life" by George Eliot a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot (William Blackwood and Sons, 1858) is identified by: First edition in book form, published 5 January 1858 in two octavo volumes by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, in an edition of 1,050 copies. The Blackwood two-volume issue of 5 January 1858 (Edinburgh and London) is the true first edition in book form and the edition collected; the census claim is confirmed.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition in book form, published 5 January 1858 in two octavo volumes by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, in an edition of 1,050 copies
- The title page carries the Blackwood imprint, the 1858 date, and the byline "George Eliot" — the pseudonym's first appearance on a book
- Collation is [4], 366 pp
- I) and [2], 381, [1 blank] pp
- II); half-titles are called for in both volumes, with a fly-title in vol
- II, though copies rebound in the period are frequently found lacking them
- Publisher imprint reads William Blackwood and Sons

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | George Eliot |
| Publisher | William Blackwood and Sons |
| Year | 1858 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition in book form, published 5 January 1858 in two octavo volumes by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, in an… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition in book form, published 5 January 1858 in two octavo volumes by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, in an edition of 1,050 copies. The title page carries the Blackwood imprint, the 1858 date, and the byline "George Eliot" — the pseudonym's first appearance on a book. Collation is [4], 366 pp. (vol. I) and [2], 381, [1 blank] pp. (vol. II); half-titles are called for in both volumes, with a fly-title in vol. II, though copies rebound in the period are frequently found lacking them. There is no printing statement and no number line: identification rests on the 1858 Blackwood title page, the two-volume collation, and the original binding. The original cloth was executed by the binders Edmonds & Remnants; the state most often described is claret / maroon-brown morocco-grain cloth blocked in blind with foliate covers, spine lettered in gilt, over cinnamon endpapers. Baker & Ross record more than one cloth variant — dealers cite the first edition as A3.2 but quote different variant letters, including a purple-cloth variant and the claret variant — and priority among the cloth variants is not settled by the sources consulted, so a copy should be described by its cloth rather than assigned a rank. Standard references: Baker & Ross A3.2; Sadleir 818; Wolff 2062; Parrish p. 7.

## Is this the true first?
The Blackwood two-volume issue of 5 January 1858 (Edinburgh and London) is the true first edition in book form and the edition collected; the census claim is confirmed. Only the UK edition is a genuine first. Note that the Blackwood book is the first collected appearance rather than the first publication of the text: the three stories — "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton", "Mr Gilfil's Love-Story" and "Janet's Repentance" — had already run anonymously in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine through 1857. A Harper & Brothers (New York) American edition followed in the same year, 1858, confirmed by the HathiTrust catalogue record (011602499) and by the Harvard copy digitised at the Internet Archive; it is a New York reprint of the London text and does not compete for precedence.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition is possible for an 1858 Blackwood novel; the traps here are "first thus" reprints and rebinds. Blackwood reissued the work repeatedly, and the 1878 Cabinet Edition is among the settings most often mistaken for the first — any copy dated later than 1858, any single-volume Blackwood copy, or any copy with a new-edition statement on the title page is not the first. Harper (New York) and Tauchnitz (Leipzig) issues are reprints. Because Sadleir noted the book "in any state is now rare" and ranked it the scarcest of Eliot's novels in the original cloth, copies in fresh original cloth are far outnumbered by period rebinds in morocco and half-calf; a handsome 19th-century binding is not evidence of a first, and the collation plus the 1858 Blackwood title page must be checked independently of the covers.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Scenes of Clerical Life* by George Eliot a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/scenes-of-clerical-life
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.