Brother and sister
Subtitle: sonnets
By: by Marian Lewes
Contributors: Wise Forgeries Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: For private circulation only; [publisher not identified]
Published: 1890
Place of publication: London; [i.e. United States]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 15
Subjects: Specimens; Forgeries; Literary forgeries and mystifications; English poetry
Notes: By George Eliot. Consult New Cambridge bibliography of English literature.

Produced in the United States in approximately 1890, this is a counterfeit of the T.J. Wise forgery of approximately 1888. For a full description of the forgery see J. Carter and G. Pollard's An enquiry into the nature of certain XIXth century pamphlets, pages 191-193.

Date of this counterfeit from British Library general catalogue of printed books to 1975; BLC suggests that it may have been produced in the United States.

The sonnets are from Eliot's The legend of Jubal, and other poems, originally published: London, 1874.

Carter and Pollard give the following features as characteristic of the counterfeit: (i) no rule at the end of the text; (ii) no period after III at the head of the third sonnet; (iii) the half-title comes after the title, and was apparently so imposed; (iv) the ornaments at the corners of the frame on the wrapper are fleur-de-lys instead of interlaced rules; (v) the wrapper itself is of coarser paper and is almost flush with the text page, whereas in the original forgery it is usually about 3/8 inch short at the foot.

Rare Book copy: Wise forgery collection, 14308368.

New Cambridge bibliography of English literature, volume 3, column 903

Carter, J. Enquiry into the nature of certain nineteenth century pamphlets, pages 191-193

British Library general catalogue of printed books to 1975, volume 93, page 267

Todd, W.B. Handlist of Thomas J. Wise. (In Thomas J. Wise centenary studies, p. [80]-115), entry 157f(2)

Gift; Margaret L. Kempner in memory of Alan H. Kempner.

In blue printed wrappers.