Legends of the Talmud. [Parabole, Leggende e Pensieri].
George Eliot’s Annotated Copy
[Eliot, George]. Parabole, Leggende e Pensieri. Raccolti dai libri Talmudici dei primi cinque secoli dell’e v. e tradotti dal Prof. Giuseppe Levi di Vercelli. Firenze: Felice le Monnier, 1861.
8vo.; marbled edges, endpapers, and boards; three-quarter calf, spine elaborately stamped in gilt. In a specially made quarter-morocco slipcase.
First edition. George’s Eliot’s copy of Legends of the Talmud, with her pencil ticks in dozens of margins throughout, and her pencil annotations to sixteen pages, identifying sections, translating text, and leaving commentary. Inscribed by her son, Charles L. Lewes: To my friend Alfred [Aigner?]/ I give this book which belonged to ‘George Eliot’ and which contains marginal notes in her handwriting. C.L. Lewes 21 Dec:1882.
It is likely that Eliot was reading this copy of Legends of the Talmud, throughout whose margins she scattered pencil notes, shortly after its publication in order to improve her knowledge of Jewish laws and tradition. Under the influence of her longtime companion George Henry Lewes, who was deeply sympathetic to the plight of Jews in Europe, George Eliot developed an intense interest in the Jewish experience. During the 1850s and 1860s, she began reading and translating the works of renowned Jewish intellectuals, including Heinrich Heine and Baruch Spinoza. In 1858, during a tour of Europe, Eliot and Lewes visited the Jewish ghetto in Prague as well as synagogues in Naples and Amsterdam. Through Lewes, Eliot also met Emanuel Deutsch, who became a mentor to her, tutoring her in the Hebrew language and Talmudic law.
Eliot’s interest in Judaism culminated with the publication of her last novel, Daniel Deronda, published in 1876—fifteen years after this volume. Daniel Deronda is largely concerned with Jewish themes, including an expression of Jewish nationalism that preceded the emergence of modern political Zionism. “She is as familiar with the views of Jehudah Levi as with the dreams and the longings of the cabalists, and as conversant with the splendid names of our Hispano-Arabic epoch as with the moral aphorisms of the Talmud and the subtle meaning contained in Jewish legend…” (Kaufman, George Eliot and Judaism). Eliot’s son Charles served as her literary executor; his inscription is dated two years after her death.
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