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HARDY, Thomas.
The Works in Prose and Verse.
[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.]
The Wessex Edition, the definitive edition of Hardy's works, and a finely bound set. Macmillan became Hardy's publishers in 1902 and "in 1912 they undertook a new and definitive edition, called (at Frederick Macmillan's suggestion) the 'Wessex Edition'. For this 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 (revealing his estimate of their relative merits) 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).
24 volumes, octavo. Recent full burgundy morocco, blue and black morocco spine labels, marbled endpapers, decorative roll to boards and top edges gilt, others untrimmed. Frontispiece to each volume. Ownership signature to preliminary leaves of some volumes. Scratch to lower board of volume I, a little browning to the endpapers of a few of the volumes. An excellent.
