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SOURCE: Weber, Carl J. “Hardy: A Wessex Seesaw.” Saturday Review of Literature 34 (6 January 1951): 24-5.
In the following essay, published during a period of decline in Hardy criticism, Weber urges a reconsideration of Hardy's literary contributions.
Thomas Hardy's first novel appeared in 1871, and those few persons who bought it had to pay only $7.50 for a set of three volumes. In 1926 when George Barr McCutcheon's copy of the same novel was sold at auction in New York it brought $2,100. Only three years later when Jerome Kern's copy of this same work was auctioned off its purchaser paid $4,800. But when Paul Lemperly's copy was sold at auction in 1940 the novel brought only $27.50.
These figures are quoted, not with the misguided idea that a revaluation of Hardy's books is a matter of dollars and cents, but because the figures tell more than a commercial story. For the rise from $7.50 up to $4,800 and...
This section contains 1,210 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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