Review of George Eliot A Bibliographical History

Authors

William Baker
John C. Ross

Date of this Version

2003

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 34 (2003)

Comments

Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org

Abstract

This enormously impressive history is the fruit of something like thirty-five years of work by William Baker and John Ross. They have brought together a huge and comprehensive body of bibliographical information, broken down into five main sections and two appenctixes. There are extensive entries and notes on the major works; minor literary works (novellas and poetry); essays and reviews; miscellaneous writing (unpublished works in publishable genres, compilations of short extracts, partly authored writings, unpublished autobiographical writings); collections and collected works (more poetry, essays, novels and complete works); and 'Eliotiana' (sequels, settings for songs from The Spanish Gypsy, collections of illustrations, non-literary writings subsequently published). The indexes alone, 'Works by George Eliot' and 'General Index', run to forty-five pages.

In the Introduction we learn, among other things, about editions, printings, issues and the states of issues, and how to translate a typical entry like' A5.4.a 2':