184 of 379 lots
184
HARDY, Thomas, editor. Select Poems of William Barnes. 1908. PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY HARDY TO HIS SISTER.
Estimate: $800-$1,200
Sold
$1,300
Live Auction
Fine Books and Manuscripts, including Worlds of Tomorrow, and Americana
Description

HARDY, Thomas (1840-1928), editor. Select Poems of William Barnes. Chosen and Edited with a Preface and Glossarial Notes by Thomas Hardy. London: Henry Frowde, 1908.


8vo. Portrait frontispiece of Barnes. (Spotting to endpapers.) Original dark green cloth decorated in blind and gilt, top edge gilt.

PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY THOMAS HARDY TO HIS SISTER MARY on the front free endpaper: "M. Hardy, from the Editor. November 1908." Thomas and Mary grew up together at the Hardy cottage in Higher Bockhampton, a few miles from the Dorset county town of Dorchester. Hardy's second wife Florence described her as the author's "earliest playmate", the "dearest and kindest sister". Hardy wrote in a letter in the days following her death in 1915, "in childhood she was almost my only companion...and she had always been the one with the keenest literary tastes and instincts." A SUPERB ASSOCIATION.