Inscribed Presentation Copy

Esther Waters. A Novel.

London: Walter Scott, 1894.

Price: $1,500.00


About the item

First edition. 375, [1], [14 (ads)] pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Inscribed Presentation Copy. Original green cloth. Hinges cracked, spine a little faded and covers slightly rubbed. Gilcher A19.

Item #14330

Esther Waters established Moore's reputation as a novelist: 24,000 copies were sold within the year, and many still regard Moore's Zolaesque tale of a servant girl to be his finest and most characteristic novel.

Esther Waters, like Moore’s earlier books, was banned by Mudie’s and Simth & Son circulating libraries. Moore’s novels, with his insistence on issuing all of his novels after the first in single-volume format to appeal directly to the book-buying public, were one of the major factors in the collapse of the circulating libraries and the demise of the Victorian triple-decker.

Inscribed presentation copies are rare, but the title page of this copy bears the following inscription:

"To Evelyn Marshall Field, with many kind wishes, George Moore 1915."

Evelyn Field was the wife of Marshal Field, 3rd, grandson of the famous Chicago merchant.