Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “Edmund Gosse from Thomas Hardy. October: 1913.” An exceptional association, one of four presentations recorded by Purdy, of Hardy’s last collection of stories in book form.
Gosse was a biographer and critic, now best remembered for his book Father and Son (1907), which portrayed his difficult relationship with his fundamentalist Christian father. The two men first met in 1874, beginning a friendship that lasted for the rest of Hardy’s life. Although Hardy was nine years Gosse’s senior, Gosse took a protective attitude to him, to the extent of calling him his “dear Child”, and defending him from hostile reviews.
It was Gosse who wrote a favourable review of Jude the Obscure, one of the first to appear before the critical deluge, and Gosse who carried the coffin at Hardy’s public funeral in Westminster Abbey.
Provenance: Edmund Gosse, the sale of his library, Part I, 30 July 1928, lot 70, to Bickers; Frederick B. Adams, Jr., sale, Part II, Sotheby’s 7 November 2001, lot 548, £4,465 including buyer’s premium.
