1, ARUNDEL TERRACE, | TRINITY ROAD, UPPER TOOTING. S.W. | Oct 1. 1878

Dear Sirs,

I enclose for your inspection a Sketch of the supposed scene in which the "Return of the Native" is laid — copied from the one I used in writing the story — & my suggestion is that we place an engraving of it as frontispiece to the first volume. Unity of place is so seldom preserved in novels that a map of the scene of action is as a rule impracticable: but since the present story affords an opportunity of doing so I am of opinion that it would be a desirable novelty, likely to increase a reader's interest. I may add that a critic once remarked to me that nothing could give such reality to a tale as a map of this sort: & I myself have often felt the same thing.

The expense of the engraving would not, I imagine, be very great. In the drawing for the book it would be desirable to shade the hills more fully than I have done in the sketch.

Hoping that you will be disposed to give the suggestion a trial, I am, Dear Sirs

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. 61.

Link: Sketch Map of the Scene of the Story of the Return of the Native