The next day the following was printed by the same paper:—­

Sir,—­The Rev. H. Anders has with questionable delicacy and unquestionable inaccuracy assured the world through your columns that the author of Scenes of Clerical Life and Adam Bede is Mr. Joseph Liggins, of Nuncaton.  I beg distinctly to deny that statement.  I declare on my honor that that gentleman never saw a line of those works until they were printed, nor had he any knowledge of them whatever.  Allow me to ask whether the act of publishing a book deprives a man of all claim to the courtesies usual among gentlemen?  If not, the attempt to pry into what is obviously meant to be withheld—­my name—­and to publish the rumors which such prying may give rise to, seems to me quite indefensible, still more so to state these rumors as ascertained facts.  I am, sir.  Yours, &c., GEORGE ELIOT.

Liggins found his ardent supporters, and he explained the letter repudiating the authorship of the Scenes of Clerical Life as being written to further his own interests.  He obtained money on the plea that he was being deprived of his rights, by showing portions of a manuscript which he had copied from the printed book.  Neighboring clergymen zealously espoused his cause, and a warm controversy raged for a little time concerning his claim.  Very curiously, it became a question of high and low church, his own fellow-believers defending Liggins with zeal, while the other party easily detected his imposition.  Finally, Blackwood published a letter in The Times denying his claims, accompanied by one from George Eliot expressing entire satisfaction with her publisher.  A consequence of this discussion was, that the real name of the author was soon known to the public.

The curiosity excited about the authorship of Adam Bede, the Liggins controversy, and the fresh, original character of the book itself, soon drew attention to its merits.  It was referred to in a Parliamentary debate, and it became the general topic of literary conversation.  Its success was soon assured, and it was not long before it was recognized that a new novelist of the first order had appeared.

It is as amusing as interesting now to look back upon the reception given to Adam Bede by the critics.  It is not every critic who can detect a great writer in his first unheralded book, and some very stupid blunders were made in regard to this one.  It was reviewed in The Spectator for February 12, 1859, in this unappreciative manner:  “George Eliot’s three-volume novel of Adam Bede is a story of humble life, where religious conscientiousness is the main characteristic of the hero and heroine, as well as of some of the other persons.  Its literary feature partakes, we fear, too much of that Northern trait which, by minutely describing things and delineating individuals as matters of substantive importance in themselves, rather than as subordinate to general interest, has a tendency to induce a feeling of sluggishness in the reader.”