The Dynasts. An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon [with Time’s Laughingstocks and other Verses
HARDY, Thomas
'THE DYNASTS' COMPLETE IN THE WESSEX EDITION
Published: Macmillan, [1920]
Stock code: 48030
Price: £90.00
2 vols., 8vo., on laid paper, with frontispieces in photogravure toned in sepia (original tissue guards present), half-titles and titles in red and black, and double-page maps in the text, endpapers lightly browned; original series binding of plum cloth, backstrips blocked and lettered in gilt, uncut AND PARTIALLY UNOPENED, a near fine copy.
With series advertisement leaf at end of each volume. The set comprises: Vol. I: The Dynasts Parts First and Second; Vol. II: The Dynasts Part Third; Time's Laughingstocks and other Verses. Macmillan's 'Wessex Edition' (the name was suggested by Frederick Macmillan himself) was intended as the definitive issue of Hardy's works incorporating all the author's final amendments. Published in 24 volumes between 1912 and 1931, it is beautifully printed on laid paper and elegantly bound. Each volume contains a fine frontispiece in sepia photogravure depcting a 'real-life' scene from the text (here they are 'The English Channel from Ridgeway Hill' and 'Wynyard's Gap in A Trampwoman's Tragedy) and a double-page 'Map of the Wessex of the Novels and Poems' made from Hardy's own drawing (now in the Dorset County Museum). 'The Wessex Edition is in every sense the definitive edition of Hardy's work and the last authority in questions of text' (Purdy). Individual volumes are now increasingly hard to find. VERY SCARCE IN THIS CONDITION. See Purdy, pp.282-6.