The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Return of the Native; The Hand of Ethelberta.]
“I won't be a slave to the past": the Works of Thomas Hardy
![The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Return of the Native; The Hand of Ethelberta.]](https://i0.wp.com/www.raptisrarebooks.com/images/216135/the-works-of-thomas-hardy-hovendon-edition.jpg?fit=1000%2C800&ssl=1 "The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Return of the Native; The Hand of Ethelberta.]")
![The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Return of the Native; The Hand of Ethelberta.]](https://i0.wp.com/www.raptisrarebooks.com/images/216136/the-works-of-thomas-hardy-hovendon-edition.jpg?fit=1000%2C1423&ssl=1 "The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Return of the Native; The Hand of Ethelberta.]")
![The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Return of the Native; The Hand of Ethelberta.]](https://i0.wp.com/www.raptisrarebooks.com/images/216137/the-works-of-thomas-hardy-hovendon-edition.jpg?fit=1000%2C532&ssl=1 "The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Return of the Native; The Hand of Ethelberta.]")
The Works of Thomas Hardy. [Including Far from the Madding Crowd; The Mayor of Casterbridge; The Return of the Native; The Hand of Ethelberta.]
HARDY, Thomas.
$500.00
Item Number: 147350
New York: Hovendon Company, n.d.
The Hovendon Company edition of Thomas Hardy’s works. Duodecimo, four volumes bound in the original publisher’s cloth, top edge gilt, frontispiece to ‘Return of the Native.’ In good condition with some rubbing and bumping to the extremities, bookplates to the front pastedown of ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge,’ slight toning to the margins, ownership stamp to the front free endpaper of ‘Far From the Madding Crowd,’ ownership signature and marginalia in pencil to some volumes.
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).
