The Spanish Gypsy. (Standard Edition).

8vo, [vi], 382pp, half-title present, marbled endpapers, t.e.g., contemp. full navy blue polished calf, gilt ruled outer borders and gilt decorated spine. A VG+ clean copy. In 1864, George Eliot began writing her longest poem, The Spanish Gypsy. This ambitious project exhausted her, and her partner George Henry Lewes took the manuscript away from her for fear it was making her ill. She returned to it two years later, after finishing Felix Holt. She threw herself into the work, even visiting Spain as part of her research. Finally published in 1868 to mixed reviews, the poem not only has intrinsic merit but looks forward to Eliot s interests and concerns in her later work, especially Daniel Deronda. Briefly, the story, reminiscent of the plots in heroic drama and opera, occurs in fifthteenth-century Spain during the inquisition. Fedalma, a gypsy girl abducted from her people as a child, has been raised by a young Don Silva's mother. Eventually, Fedalma and the noble Don Silva plan to marry despite the objections of his uncle, Father Isidor. a clergyman zealous in the cause of the Incquisition. He questions Fedalma's devotion to the Christian faith and is suspicious of her gypsy heritage, so akin to that of the hated Moors. Fedalma's long-lost father and leader of the gypsies appears just at this moment and demands that she choose between Don Silva and her people. She goes off with her father, and Don Silva follows, swearing a blood oath to become a gypsy. Later, his three closest are killed by the gypsies and his uncle hanged by them. At that point, Don Silva fatally stabs Fedalma's father. This leaves Fedalma to lead the gypsies back to their allies in Africa. As she is boarding the ship with her people, Don Silva appears in the garb of a penitent, and Fedalma forgives him before she sails away.…