THE TRUMPET MAJOR (Believed to be the Only Known Inscribed Presentation Copy of Hardy's Famous Napoleonic Novel) by Hardy, Thomas - 1881

London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1881. Hardy, Thomas. THE TRUMPET MAJOR. A Tale. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1881. 8vo. First One-Volume edition in the original publisher's red cloth, blocked in black and lettered in gilt. 32-page catalogue at rear. Very Good, cloth a little soiled and worn. PRESENTATION COPY inscribed on the verso of the front-free endpaper: "Miss Tindal Atkinson/ from/ T. Hardy." The recipient was the daughter of Hardy's good friend Henry Tindal Atkinson (1818-1890). Hardy met "Serjeant" Atkinson and his daughter in 1880 or 1881 when they became neighbors. As recorded by Hardy in the Life (155): "Though they had expected to be lonely in Wimborne after London, they […] had a genial neighbor in the county judge Tindal-Atkinson, one of the last "Serjeants-At-Law," who took care they should not mope if dinners and his and his daughter's music could prevent it." Indeed Hardy fondly referred to Atkinson as "My Dear Serjeant" in the holograph note to Atkinson from Hardy found tipped into this volume on his Max Gate stationery, dated August 21, 1885. This charming letter refers to Atkinson's "dignified" cane which was left at Max Gate and which Hardy is happy to personally return. This appears to be the only known presentation copy of Hardy's great Napoleonic novel THE TRUMPET MAJOR, his best-selling and most popular early work, first published in 1880 in an edition of 1,000 copies. There are no presentation copies of the first edition recorded in Richard Purdy's Thomas Hardy bibliography, and none appeared at the sale of the greatest collection of Thomas Hardy's first editions and manuscripts, that belonging to Frederick Baldwin Adams, Jr. (Sotheby's New York, 2001). Nor can an inscribed copy be found in the extensive Hardy collections of Carroll Atwood Wilson, Michael Sadleir, Morris Parrish, Howard Bliss, David Magee, or Robert Lee Wolff. Auction records and institutional search likewise find no other copy presented by the author, first edition or indeed later editions. Three-volume first editions of THE TRUMPET-MAJOR continue to be highly desirable but easily acquired. Ours is a black tulip, one-of-a-kind, a copy personally presented to the daughter of a man whom Hardy called friend and neighbor. Purdy (p. 35). In a vintage morocco clamshell case.. Inscribed By Author. First Edition. Decorative Cloth. Very Good.