WESSEX TALES. Strange, Lively, and Commonplace.

London: Macmillan and Co., 1888. 2 volumes. First edition. A publisher's presentation copy with their purple "Compliments" stamp to Vol. I. 8vo, in the scarce original dark blue/green cloth, the boards with ruled lines in light green, the spines also ruled in light green and with letting in gilt. Now housed in a fine custom clamshell box. 247; 212 pp. A fine set, and scarce in the publisher's cloth, this a very rare "Publishers' Compliments" copy. The text clean and fresh, the binding bright with only a tiny bit of age or wear. A SCARCE HARDY TITLE IN ORIGINAL CLOTH, THERE WERE ONLY 750 COPIES PRINTED AND OF THOSE ONLY 634 WERE BOUND, the rest of the sheets were remaindered. This copy is not only very unusual for its exceptional and bright condition but also for being a publisher's presentation copy.
The work consists of five stories (The Three Strangers, The Withered Arm, Fellow-Townsmen, Interlopers at the Knap, and The Distracted Preacher)previously published only in serials. In the various short stories, Hardy writes of the true nature of nineteenth-century marriage and its inherent restrictions, the use of grammar as a diluted form of thought, the disparities created by the role of class status in determining societal rank, the stance of women in society and the severity of even minor diseases causing the rapid onset of fatal symptoms prior to the introduction of sufficient medicinal practices. A focal point of all the short stories is that of social constraints acting to diminish one's contentment in life, necessitating unwanted marriages, repression of true emotion and succumbing to melancholia due to constriction within the confines of 19th-century perceived normalcy.