The Works of Thomas Hardy. THE MELLSTOCK EDITION - SIGNED BY HARDY. This item is unavailable.The Works of Thomas Hardy. THE MELLSTOCK EDITION - SIGNED BY HARDY

37 vols. Tall 8vo. Nice blue cloth, with front blocked in gold with a solid TH monogram medallion of acorns and oak leaves. The same leaf motif is repeated on elaborate gt.decor.on spines. The paper bears Hardy's initials as watermark. In generally good condition. Bindings lightly worn with rubbing and scuffing, and with some minor gilt loss / dulling in places, and some occasional fraying at extremities, as typical in the original cloth. All boards attached with minor wear to joints and hinges. Some corners are bumped. Some spines are slightly cocked, but the set shows very well indeed on the shelf, as pictured. Some volumes with shelf lean, but the set stands well together. Some light fading to some spines. Some occasional marks to boards. Page edges toned. Text blocks are generally very clean with occasional light toning, foxing and marks. Uncollated but present volumes appear to be complete. Some dampstaining to volumes 4 and 28 affecting mostly the front boards and some of the first few leaves, not affecting legibility, and some minor occasional dampstaining in other volumes, not typically affecting more than a few leaves. Volume 14 board with minor scratches to the head of the front board and a small tear to the foot of the front board (14mm approx.). Volume 33 with dampstaining to the bottom of the binding. Some uncut edges. Endpapers toned and foxed. White marks to the both boards of volume 8. Dampstaining to the rear board of volume 26. Prominent dampstaining to the rear board of volume 33, and minor dampstaining to the front board. Size 9.25 x 6.25 inches VOLUME 1 IS SIGNED BY HARDY, and has an etched portrait by WILLIAM STRANG as a frontispiece. Vol.2 has the "Map of Wessex of the Novels and Poems". This is an EDITION DE LUXE, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Trained as an architect he worked as such until he was able to support himself by writing in 1874. His early poetical work met with little success, and he turned to novels as being more saleable. His first two novels, ?Desperate Remedies? 1871, and ?Under the Geenwood Tree? 1872 were published anonymously. The next two ?A Pair of Blue Eyes? 1873, and ?Far From The Madding Crowd? 1874, published under his own name were well received. In the latter he portrayed Dorsetshire as the imaginary Wessex. Other great Hardy novels are ?The Return of the Native? 1878, ?Tess of the D?Urbervilles? 1891 and ?Jude the Obscure? 1895. Through intense vivid descriptions of heath, fields, seasons, the weather Wessex attains a physical presence and acts as a mirror to the conditions and fortunes of the characters, all are dominated by the determinism of Charles Darwin. This is particularly so in ?Jude?, which treats sexual attraction as a natural force unstoppable by human will. Criticism of ?Jude? was so harsh that Hardy announced that he was cured of writing novels. Hardy returned to the poetry he had abandoned earlier. In the Dynasts, an epic poem dealing with England's role in the Napoleonic wars, Hardy creates his most successful poetry.…