Bibliophiles: would you attempt this save?

I’m holding a copy of George Eliot’s Middlemarch that belonged to my late mother. It’s a hardcover “Modern Readers” edition published by Macmillan in 1926.

When my mother’s books came to me, I tried to read this copy, but it literally crumbled in my hands. The binding is falling apart, the gold-stamped spine is disintegrating, and the pages are yellow and fragile.

Moreover, the inner margin on many pages is no more than ¼” and on some pages as little as 1/8”.

This had to have been a relatively economical edition in the first place, and it simply has not held up over time.

But my mother, a great Eliot admirer, read and reread this copy, to judge from her penciled notations. This was one of a few books that she kept close by all her life.

I can barely stand to put any book in the trash, no matter how worthless. I’ve probably actually thrown away no more than a dozen in my whole life. But this one seems past saving, although I would call it far from worthless.

If this book were in your care, would you attempt any sort of restoration? If so, what kind and how, and how costly would it be?

If it’s hopeless, would you keep it as is, unreadable, or let it go?