MAX GATE, | DORCHESTER. | 22 Jan 1892

My dear Sir:

I am sorry that I cannot help you to a copy of the first Edition of "Far from the Madding Crowd". There is one copy only in this house — by the way I am not sure that it is a first Edn — and that is not my property. However I remember that only a few misprints were corrected, & verbal changes made, for the second edition.

Before I had received your letter I had given away the few copies of "Tess" at my disposal. There will, however, be no difficulty in getting a first edn of her — for a mere trifle — at the libraries, when the people have done reading the story.

I say nothing for or against your idea of the bibliography & essays. As the time is rather early for any such thing, you can consider at the last moment whether it would be desirable to keep it in MS. awhile. I hope it will not be eulogistic: cool honest analysis is best: — I mean if more be done than the mere bibliography.

If you publish a map of Wessex it would, I presume, be rather more distinct than that which appeared in The Bookman.

Yours faithfully
Thomas Hardy.

Source: Hardy, Thomas. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy. Vol 1. Edited by Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978. 256.

MAX GATE, | DORCHESTER. | June 22. 1892

My dear Sir:

I have delayed my reply for a day or two, till I could better inform you on the points you raise. The possibility of my sitting for the etching would depend upon how long the work wd be in hand. I propose to be in Town for a week after Friday next — & could give any reasonable time in the interval. Later on I suppose I shall be working here — & could be made use of by anybody at hand, of course.

Savile Club, Piccadilly will find me after Friday.

The Map of Wessex in the Bookman was not made by me. It seems to have been suggested by an observation of mine that I had begun one — I do not intend to finish mine at present; & hardly think it advisable for you to repeat what the Bookman has done.

There is no good photograph of my house in existence. Two or three have been taken, but I have given copies of them to the editors of newspapers, who I presume intend to reproduce them. You can have one if you wish: but there is nothing artistic in either.

Yours faithfully
T. Hardy.

Source: Hardy, Thomas. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy. Vol 1. Edited by Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978. 275.

Link: Map of Wessex in the Bookman to which Hardy refers in these letters