Thomas Hardy – The Works Of Thomas Hardy In Prose And Verse – The Wessex Edition – Twenty Volumes Plus Four Volumes

Author: Thomas Hardy
Price: £600.00 including postage in the UK
Publisher: Methuen, London, UK
Publication Date: 1912-1931
Format: Original cloth gilt.
Condition: Very good plus
Size: 15.1cm x 22.9cm

Description:

The Wessex Edition. All first editions thus. Original cloth gilt. Twenty volumes dated 1912-1913 along with ‘A Changed Man’ dated 1914, ‘Satires of Circumstance’ and ‘Moments of Vision’ dated 1919, ‘Late Lyrics and Earlier’ and ‘The Queen of Cornwall’ dated 1926 and ‘Human Shows and Winter Words’ dated 1931. The first twenty volumes are numbered I-XX in gilt to the bases of the spines and are uniform in colour. Varying shades of cloth to the later four volumes. Occasional slight foxing. Bindings nice and tight. A very good plus, tight, clean set. Scarce in this condition.

Thomas Hardy: A Short Biography

Thomas Hardy, OM (1840–1928), was an English novelist and poet of profound influence, whose vision reshaped the landscape of English literature. Best known for his novels set in the fictional region of Wessex, he left a lasting literary legacy that was formally consolidated in the Wessex Edition of his works—a monumental publishing endeavour that Hardy personally supervised. This edition stands as both a culmination of his literary career and a reflection of the themes and settings that define his oeuvre.

Early Life and Background

Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, a hamlet near Dorchester in Dorset. The son of a master mason and a well-read mother, Hardy grew up in a modest but culturally rich household. His mother played a formative role in fostering his early interest in literature, folklore, and music, elements that would later permeate his fiction and poetry.

Educated locally, Hardy demonstrated academic promise but was unable to pursue university studies due to financial limitations. At the age of sixteen, he was apprenticed to John Hicks, a local architect, and later worked in London under Sir Arthur Blomfield. During this period, Hardy became increasingly immersed in literature, philosophy, and classical studies, all of which informed his intellectual and artistic development.

The Making of Wessex

Hardy began writing fiction in the 1860s, initially publishing under a pseudonym. His early works met with mixed success, but he soon found his distinctive voice in the novel Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). This marked the beginning of his creation of ‘Wessex’—a richly imagined region based on the counties of south-west England. More than a backdrop, Wessex became a character in its own right, evoking the rhythms, tensions, and melancholy of rural life.

Over the next two decades, Hardy produced a remarkable sequence of novels that would later be brought together in the Wessex Edition. These include The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Each explored themes of fate, societal pressure, personal tragedy, and the limitations imposed by class, gender, and religion. His characters often struggle against indifferent natural forces and rigid social systems, reflecting Hardy’s growing scepticism of Victorian moral certainties.

The Wessex Edition

The Wessex Edition, first issued between 1912 and 1931, was Hardy’s definitive edition of his novels, short stories, and poetry. He personally revised the texts, refining their language, clarifying narrative details, and aligning place names with his fictional geography. The edition served to unify his body of work under the imaginative realm of Wessex, reinforcing the coherence of his literary vision.

By curating this edition himself, Hardy asserted both artistic control and intellectual authority over his oeuvre. The project also allowed him to contextualise earlier novels—some originally written to satisfy commercial tastes—within the broader, more philosophical framework that characterises his later work. The Wessex Edition thus presents Hardy not merely as a novelist of rural life, but as a literary architect whose thematic concerns span the psychological, the existential, and the historical.

Transition to Poetry

Following the hostile reception of Jude the Obscure, Hardy turned away from fiction and devoted the rest of his life primarily to poetry. His poetic output—later included in selected volumes within the Wessex Edition—demonstrates remarkable lyrical power and philosophical depth. Collections such as Wessex Poems (1898) and Poems of the Past and the Present (1901) reflect on love, loss, war, and the inexorability of time. His verse often conveys a subdued melancholy and philosophical resignation, hallmarks of his mature thought.

His magnum opus in verse, The Dynasts (1904–1908), is an epic historical drama covering the Napoleonic Wars. Though complex and ambitious, it reinforced Hardy’s belief in the impersonality of history and the tragic limitations of human endeavour.

Personal Life

In 1874, Hardy married Emma Gifford, whom he had met while working on the restoration of a Cornish church. Their marriage was marked by increasing emotional distance, but her death in 1912 profoundly affected him. His poems in her memory, especially those in Poems of 1912–13, are widely regarded as among his finest and most intimate work.

In 1914, he married his secretary, Florence Dugdale. Though the second marriage lacked the passion of the first, Florence remained a steadfast companion and became Hardy’s literary executor. She played a key role in editing and promoting the Wessex Edition after his death.

Later Recognition and Death

Hardy was awarded the Order of Merit in 1910 and was widely celebrated as a national literary figure. His influence extended well beyond the borders of England, shaping modernist writers and continuing to inspire critical debate.

He died on 11 January 1928 at his home, Max Gate, in Dorchester. In a gesture that reflected his dual significance to both national and local heritage, his ashes were interred in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey, while his heart was buried in Stinsford churchyard beside Emma.

Legacy

The Wessex Edition stands as the authoritative presentation of Hardy’s work, preserving the voice of a writer deeply attuned to the forces of nature, society, and human psychology. Through this edition, Hardy’s legacy was solidified not only as a chronicler of a vanishing rural world but as a profound thinker and master craftsman of English prose and poetry.

His vision of Wessex endures—not merely as a fictional setting, but as a lens through which to understand the fragility of human aspiration, the complexities of love, and the quiet resilience of the individual spirit. Thomas Hardy remains, through his Wessex Edition, a cornerstone of English literature.

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