| | Never before have so keen and varied an observa-
tion, so deep all insight into character and motives, I
so strong a grasp of conceptions, such power of pic-
turesque description, worked together to represent
through the agency of fiction an author's moral and
social views. * * * The book is like a portrait-gallery.
From Mr. Brooke with his ingenious summaries, his
universal experience, and never-failing reservations--
highly amusing to the reader, but more tolerated in
his circle than the ordinary feeling of human nature to-
ward bores makes quite natural--to the wonderful
group of hungry expectants gathered round the miser's
death-bed, voice, eyes, movement, physiognomy, all are
photographed from the life.-- Saturday Review, London.George Eliot's power of moral anatomy has proba-
bly never yet so fully displayed itself as in this, her
latest work, and--in a sense--her ripest. * * * As we
bid farewell to Mr. Brooke and Sir James Chettam,
and Drs. Minchin and Sprague, and old Mr. Standish,
and Easter-egg-complexioned Mr. Chichely, we feel
as if we were taking leave of old friends. Let those
who wish to test George Eliot's power consider with
how few words she lays bare the whole anatomy of a
soul. Of whom have we heard the more, and whom
do we know the better--Fred Vincy or Pendennis, Mr.
Farebrother or Bishop Proudie? In almost a sentence
or two Mr. Horrock is sketched as clearly as Sir Toby
Belch himself, Mr. Borthrop Trumbull as Malvolio. * * *
"Middlemarch" is beyond all measure the most pow-
erful of George Eliot's works.-- Athenæum, London.In every way it is a book to be glad of; and if it does
not enhance George Eliot's fame, it will only be because
she has already attained the foremost rank among nov-
elists who write novels that contain more religion than
all the sermons that were ever penned, and enough
sound philosophy to make the reputation of half a doz-
en moralists and metaphysicians.-- Examiner, London. "Middlemarch" must take rank as the best of the
author's massive works. * * * We are to read "Mid-
dlemarch," not altogether for the story, but for the
many beauties that go to the making of a perfect
whole: for the weighty language in which it is writ-
ten; for the deep thought, of which that language is
the incarnation; for the beautiful ideas that are ex-
pressed on every page; for the strong sentences, each
of which contains some golden truth; and for the pic-
tures it affords of habits of existence and modes of
thinking among the "common file" that are vanishing
so fast that they are to us like things we have seen in
dreams, and which soon must be to us what are the
lives and thoughts of the men and women who lived
and laughed and loved a hundred years ago, when Fan-
ny Burney was observing what was going on around
her, and preparing to embalm some of the flies that
were so common, in the amber of immortality.-- Bos-
ton Traveller.George Eliot will take her stand among the stars of
the second magnitude, with the cluster which contains
Scott and Fielding, and, indeed, all but Shakespeare,
on a level of comparative equality with them; or, at
least, without any distance between her and the great-
est of them which can compare for a moment with the
distance which divides all of them from Shakspeare.--
Spectator, London.A work which, if it stood alone, would have made an
era in the literature of fiction. Following, as it does,
a series of acknowledged masterpieces from the same
hand which gave a new character to the English
"novel," it would have been much to have been able
to say that it maintained the reputation of its author.
But we shall be surprised if the mature judgment
passed upon it by those who can appreciate the work
of a true artist does not pronounce it the most per-
fect of the series.-- Blackwood's Magazine.
GEORGE ELIOT'S NOVELS. LIBRARY EDITION. | | ADAM BEDE. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. | | | FELIX HOLT, THE RADICAL. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth,
$1 00. | | | MIDDLEMARCH: a Study of Provincial Life. 2 vols., 8vo,
Cloth, $3 50. | | | MILL ON THE FLOSS. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. | | | ROMOLA. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. | | | SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE AND SILAS MARNER.
In One Volume. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, $1 00. | PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. HARPER & BROTHERS will send either af the above works by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the
United States, on receipt of the price. -2- | |
