The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; Jude the Obscure; Tess of the D’Urbervilles; The Trumpet-Major; Two on a Tower; The Well-Beloved.]

“Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness": The Wessex edition of The Works of Thomas Hardy

The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; Jude the Obscure; Tess of the D’Urbervilles; The Trumpet-Major; Two on a Tower; The Well-Beloved.]

HARDY, Thomas.

Item Number: 122053

London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1912-1913.

The Wessex Edition of Hardy’s complete works. Octavo, twenty two volumes bound in full morocco by Riviere & Son with elaborate gilt tooling to the spines in six compartments within raised gilt bands, morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, triple gilt ruling to the panels, gilt turn-ins and inner dentelles, gilt topstain, marbled endpapers. In fine condition. Rare and desirable bound in full morocco.

Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. For the Wessex Edition "Hardy revised his novels throughout for the last time. In a 'General Preface to the Novels and Poems', dated October 1911 and printed in Vol. I, he explained his classification of his novels here adopted for the first time and offered a brief apologia for his work. This is an essay of primary importance. The Wessex Edition is in every sense the definitive edition of Hardy's work and the last authority in questions of text" (Purdy).

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