Felix Holt, the radical

First edition. The third volume includes the four-page William Blackwood catalogue of recent publications and twenty pages of the general Blackwood catalogue. This extensive catalogue is seldom found at the end of the volume; however, the presence of the four-page catalogue is a known indicator of the first issue. Brick-red cloth covers and spine preserved and mounted at the end of the volume. The edition was issued in five different bindings; this copy is in the very first state, A, with 'Wm. Blackwood' printed at the foot of the spines.

Late 19th-century English binding in brown half morocco over marbled boards. Spine with raised bands in Jansenist style. Gilt lettering for author, title, volume number and date. Top edge gilt. Spines evenly sunned. Minor rubbing. Headpiece fragment missing on volume 3. A crisp set, with a small marginal tear (a few millimetres) to the title-page of volume 2.

A handsome copy.

Upon publication, the novel was praised by the literary critic E. S. Dallas in a review for the Times, who proclaimed the author's superiority to Jane Austen: "Felix Holt is certainly a work of rare genius" (26 June 1866, p. 6). The novel offers a portrait of political corruption set against a sentimental romance, with the author placing the action in a provincial setting she knew well and often explored in her fiction.