University of Virginia Library

Two 'New' Texts of Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders
by
Dale Kramer

A textual matter concerning the American publication of one of Thomas Hardy's best novels opens new areas for Hardy investigations and for studies of nineteenth-century publishing practices. Two "American" texts of The Woodlanders constitute separate stages of composition of that novel; they do not correspond precisely to the manuscript nor to any version ever published in England. The value of this fact, beyond its usefulness to bibliographers, lies in the new insights its explanation provides into Hardy's novel-writing and revising methods.

Hardy scholars have long known of five printed versions of The Woodlanders, and they have assumed that what they considered the first printed version [text number 4 in the list below] reproduces the manuscript.[1] While the present study primarily deals with two previously unidentified printed texts, it also reveals the manuscript to be a separate version. The following table lists all eight of the now-known versions in the order of the novel's evolution, with explanatory comments.

• 1. The manuscript, in the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, England.
• 2. Harper's Bazar text; weekly installments from May 15, 1886, to April 9, 1887; published in New York.

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• 3. Harper & Brothers book version, published in New York in one volume on March 25, 1887.[2]
• 4. Macmillan's Magazine text, published in monthly installments in London from May, 1886, to April, 1887.
• 5. English first edition, published by Macmillan and Co. of London in three volumes on March 15, 1887.
• 6. The "Second Edition," the first English one-volume edition, published in London in August, 1887, by Macmillan and Co.
• 7. The text of The Woodlanders published in 1896 by Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. of London as Volume VII of the first collected edition of Hardy, Thomas Hardy's Works: The Wessex Novels. This collected edition is usually called the "Osgood edition" to distinguish it from the next edition in this listing.
• 8. The definitive text, Volume VI of Prose of Macmillan and Co's The Works of Thomas Hardy in Prose and Verse (Wessex Edition) of 1912. It is this edition that is legitimately referred to as "the Wessex Edition."

This article deals with the first four texts, which are referred to as the manuscript, Harper's Bazar, Harper book, and Macmillan's Magazine. It should be noted, for emphasis, that the middle two are the unique texts. These two hitherto unidentified texts were both published in America and both represent early stages in the novel's evolution, thereby pointing to an interesting if not unprecedented bibliographical oddity. The English first edition [text number 5] is the first edition only in date of publication; the American first edition, published ten days later, contains an earlier version of the text.

Hardy, as the list above suggests, seldom let a new setting of type slip by without offering a number of reworked passages to the printers. And while he did not read the proof sheets which were made by the American printers, he did supply the copy from which the American texts were set up. A brief digression will show how and why this was accomplished.

Hardy customarily arranged for simultaneous publication of his novels in England and in the United States. In the case of The Woodlanders, he sold the rights of serialization and domestic book issue in each country to a major publishing house — Macmillan & Co. in England and Harper & Brothers in America. The economic necessity for simultaneous publication of The Woodlanders is an essential factor in the formation of the unique American texts. Before 1891 there was no copyright protection in the United States for works first published in England. Any publisher in America could reprint British books or magazines without obtaining the permission either of the author or of the original publisher. Throughout the nineteenth century, such writers as Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Disraeli, and Wilkie Collins felt the loss of thousands of pounds in royalties from this piracy. Under these conditions, it was important for J. Henry Harper, Hardy's authorized American publisher of The Woodlanders, to be able to place on sale his weekly Harper's Bazar and — at the end of the serialization — a bound edition of The Woodlanders before the omnipresent and highly efficient American pirates of the publishing profession could produce cut-rate competitors after obtaining a copy of Macmillan's Magazine, which arrived in New York via steamship a short time after being printed in London. Since a pirating publisher was able to sell a book under his own imprint within thirty-six hours after obtaining a copy whose pages he could distribute among a crew of compositors, not only days but hours were crucial elements in obtaining priority of publication.

To gain the the slight but important edge in priority of publication, as well as to be honest in a very basic way, the more reputable American publishers arranged with an English author to be furnished pre-publication copy. Hardy's usual procedure under the terms of the arrangement with his American publisher was to send to America advance proof sheets of his English serialization.[3] On page 85 of Hardy in America Weber prints a letter in which Hardy proposes such a method for The Woodlanders to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, editor of the Atlantic Monthly; Aldrich rejected the offer but Harper obviously acceded to a similar offer. The same variation from the manuscript in all of the English and American printed versions indicates that this method, rather than sending longhand copies as in the case of Two on a Tower (whose initial appearance was as a serial in the Atlantic),

was used for The Woodlanders. At one point, the manuscript contains an addition without the use of a caret: which is printed as "from the trees of later harvest" (p. 210). Judging from the position of the addition and the spacing of the words in the manuscript (the words "the" and "later" are joined by the pen-stroke) as well as from the sense of the phrase, "from trees of the later harvest" is what was intended. Had The Woodlanders gone to America in duplicate manuscripts, this phrase would probably have been correctly written out by Hardy or his wife Emma in a single line; but as it is, the original typesetter's error has never been corrected.

Hardy once a month sent manuscript sheets from his home in Dorchester to the Macmillan printers in London, who set them in type and sent several sets of the resulting proof sheets to Hardy. Until now, it has been assumed by Hardy scholars either that the English publisher sent the proof sheets to America or that for each novel Hardy corrected and revised a set of proofs to be returned to his English publisher, and that he copied verbatim those corrections and revisions onto another set of proofs which was sent in monthly packets to his authorized American publisher. But in at least the case of The Woodlanders, Hardy's pre-publication revising was more elaborate. Because of the lack of international copyright, the sheets for Harper's Bazar had to be sent hastily, so Hardy had time to make only a small number of revisions, which, naturally, he or Emma copied onto the other sets of proof sheets. Hardy sent a second set of advance proof sheets, on which he had made further revisions, to America under separate cover as a precaution against the possibility that the first set might be missent or lost.[4] But even the second set could not be revised carefully enough to satisfy the conscientious and artistically restless Hardy, since in sending the second set of proofs promptness still had to be the primary consideration. So, after dispatching both sets of proof sheets to America, Hardy made further revisions on a third set before returning that set

to the Macmillan printers for the forthcoming monthly issue of Macmillan's Magazine.

The result, then, of Hardy's penchant for revision, the lack of international copyright, and the vicissitudes of transatlantic mail service, was this: Harper's Bazar set up its pages from the first set of proofs, the Harper book printers used the second set, and Macmillan's Magazine used the third set. No correspondence or memorandum remains to show whether the Harper printers realized that the two sets of proof sheets that Hardy sent had differing author's revisions and corrections; most probably, the book's printers were sent the second set by Harper's editors solely for the sake of convenience.

The evidence of the above assertions concerning the uniqueness of the American texts rests upon a comparison of four versions of The Woodlanders: the manuscript, the Harper's Bazar text, the Harper book text, and the Macmillan's Magazine text. In the first of several sections devoted to particular sorts of variants, I contrast variants in Harper's Bazar with the corresponding passages in the manuscript. Next, I discuss distinctions between the two American texts. Then, I cover differences between the Harper book and Macmillan's Magazine. A section pointing out passages that were revised more than once in the four versions follows. Drawing upon these sections for illustrations, the conclusion proves that the American texts' variants were authored by Hardy; the conclusion also summarizes the primary findings of the comparison of the four versions, and points out the signifiance of this study to an understanding of Hardy's art.

This might be the best place to mention in passing the pirated text of The Woodlanders sold by H. C. Munro & Co., New York, April 16, 1887, reprinted by A. L. Burt in 1895, and by Munro again in 1898. I have checked only 1898 and 1895 copies, but I presume that Munro always used the same plates. If this belief is accurate, Burt's volume is either a sub-edition or a re-issue of Munro's. This is a tentative ascription, since there were at least eleven other pirating publishers of The Woodlanders, but Munro's first edition bears the earliest date of the pirates. Weber's "Tragedy in Little Hintock," pp. 151-153, contains a check-list of the pirated — as well as the authorized — American printings of The Woodlanders.

The complexity of the American bibliography is increased by the knowledge that the pirated edition itself comprises a unique text. Both Macmillan's Magazine and Harper's Bazar were raided by the pirating printers, who set up their type from the June-August, 1887, installments of Macmillan's Magazine (Chapters V-XVIII) while using Harper's Bazar for the rest of the text. Contrary to another general

assumption, then, the pirates did not wait for the English first edition to arrive in America before setting to work. Since the focus of this study is on Hardy's habits of revision, the pirated printings were not exhaustively checked and are not discussed here.

I

Since the proof sheets sent to the American magazine received only a cursory revision by Hardy in the necessity to meet deadlines, there are but occasional differences between Harper's Bazar and the manuscript. Moreover, the variants that mark differences between the manuscript and Harper's Bazar also mark differences between the manuscript and the Harper book text. (The only exception to this generalization reflects Hardy's reluctance to offend Victorian readers: it is discussed in a more pertinent context in the next section of this paper.) Hardy, in other words, did not alter in the second set of proofs any of the revisions he made while working on the first set. Therefore, the variants I am discussing in this section are in both Harper's Bazar and the Harper book text; these variants are common Harper variants when compared to corresponding passages in the manuscript. Of course, the Harper book text has additional revisions. The book edition's other variants, which make it a different text than Harper's Bazar and which establish it as the second American version, are covered in the next section of this article.

Only a few improvements were made in time to be included in Harper's Bazar. In one of the few additions of humor that Hardy worked into his Harper's Bazar revisions, Marty South dryly comments to herself after Giles tells her that his houses are only life-holdings and will someday become Mrs. Charmond's, "They are going to keep company with my hair" (p. 38) — the hair she had sold to a barber to be made into a wig for the rich and fashionable Mrs. Charmond. Another improvement, the substitution of "gentleness that might hinder sufficient self-expression for her own good" for "latent sauciness that might never actually show itself," more clearly connotes Grace's placid lack of independence (p. 42).

A more important change than most of those affecting the Harper's Bazar text removes the manuscript's identification of Felice Charmond as "the daughter of an eminent painter" who might, if she wished, have claimed more merit than falls to people merely possessing family antiquity. In place of this artistic background, Harper's Bazar ascribes to her an "adaptable, wandering weltbürgerliche nature" (p. 69). Also, the manuscript's reference to Grace as "this gentle young girl" becomes

in Harper's Bazar "this gentle acquaintance [of Mrs. Charmond's]" (p. 70).

The last two sentences of the last paragraph of Chapter XXX, which describes Melbury's indecision to ask Mrs. Charmond to cease flirting with his son-in-law, first appear in Harper's Bazar:

Another added paragraph portrays Grace hearing "a faint noise among the trees, resembling a cough" during the first day she is at Giles's cabin after fleeing from her husband Fitzpiers (p. 369). This addition provides the first indication that Hardy gives to Grace that Giles is ill, even though she does not consciously link the sound with disease until the evening of the following day when she hears Giles deliriously talking to himself in the rain-soaked shelter he has made for himself out of hurdles and thatches after giving up his hut to Grace.

The conjunction "if" enters a sentence in Harper's Bazar to clarify a set of modifiers: "'Grace!' said Fitzpiers in an indescribable whisper — more than invocating — if not quite deprecatory" (p. 386; italics mine). Another minor grammatical correction that was made first in Harper's Bazar was the substitution of "it" for "them" in the sentence, "Fitzpiers discerned a gay procession of people coming down the way, and was not long in perceiving it to be a wedding-party" (p. 407).

Also, in the early pages of the manuscript Giles has been called "Ambrose;" this is corrected to "Giles" twice (pp. 32, 34) although in two other places the appellation remains "Ambrose" (pp. 13, 30). (In several of the early pages of both the manuscript and the Harper text, Giles is correctly named.) The name of the man who keeps a ciderhouse is changed from "Aaron" to "Farmer" Cawtree (p. 27). Interestingly, other evidences of the evolution of characters' names are unchanged from the manuscript: Robert Creedle in one passage retains an earlier Christian name, "Lot" (p. 31); and the first appearance of Suke Damson is as "Suke Sengreen" (p. 176). These remnants of earlier names are corrected in Macmillan's Magazine.

II

The variant passages that are common to both Harper's Bazar and the Harper book edition have been pointed out. This section offers substantiation for the major assertion of this paper: that there exist

two American versions of The Woodlanders, in stages of composition between the manuscript and the English serial.

The Harper's Bazar text is only slightly advanced beyond the manuscript, because Hardy had to send the first set of proofs to America quickly. It naturally contains a few oversights, which are corrected in the Harper book text. For example, in the manuscript and Harper's Bazar, Fitzpiers includes Fortitude, Discretion, Wisdom, and Love in Schleiermacher's list of cardinal virtues, and Grace thinks that Giles has not much discretion; in the Harper book text, the cardinal virtues are Self-control, Perseverance, Wisdom, and Love, and it is perseverance that Grace thinks is lacking in Giles (p. 167). Also, Fitzpiers' reaction toward finding Grace in the man-trap set by Tim Tangs is made more appropriate. In the manuscript and Harper's Bazar, the statement is "Although he had never seen a mantrap before, Fitzpiers could not help perceiving that this instrument was one." Probably recalling that earlier in the novel he had described the late Mr. Charmond's collection of man-traps (p. 67), and that Fitzpiers often had been in Hintock House both as physician and lover, Hardy in the second set of proofs changed the above statement to "Fitzpiers had often studied the effect of these instruments when examining the collection at Hintock House" (p. 430).

Several other readings first enter the novel in the Harper book text. For example, in the manuscript and Harper's Bazar, Melbury had known that the lawyer Beaucock had written to Giles informing him that a divorce for Grace from Fitzpiers is impossible to obtain. The passage in Harper's Bazar reads:

Melbury's explicit knowledge is deleted for the Harper book text and is not in any of the English texts:

When Grace runs away from home upon Fitzpiers' return from the Continent, she originally left empty-handed; but beginning in the Harper book text, she "gathered a few toilet necessaries into a handbag" before slipping out of the back door (p. 359). Again, Melbury's search-party learns that the man accompanying Grace had been "holding her tight" in the manuscript and Harper's Bazar; this phrase changes to "clutching her tight" in the Harper book text (p. 436). The description of Fitzpiers and Grace which Melbury obtains from other strollers is altered in other details for the Harper book text, but considerations of space prohibit recounting all of the alterations here.

Some of the most bibliographically challenging remnants of the second set of proof sheets are several passages in the Harper book text which are in no other text of The Woodlanders — that is, passages which Hardy wrote onto the second set of proofs but which were not transferred to the third set of proof sheets, the one which was sent to Macmillan's Magazine. For example, after murmuring a few lines from Congreve (which are in the manuscript, the American and English serials, and the Harper book text but not in any English book text or the definitive text), Fitzpiers apostrophizes the playwright in the italicized sentence below, which appears only in the Harper book text:

Another passage unique to the Harper book text describes Mrs. Charmond as she receives Melbury on the morning he has come to question her about her relationship with his son-in-law. The italicized portion is the unique Harper book passage:

Again, the phrase "something like" exists only in the Harper book text in the phrase "in what seemed something like her own voice grown ten years older" (p. 293); and in the Harper book text alone, Melbury once describes his hair as "gray" in his plea to Grace not to let it be publicly known that she has spent three nights in Giles's hut (even though Giles had not been there): "Then why should you by a piece of perverseness bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave?" (p. 392).

The number of differences between Harper's Bazar and the Harper book edition increases as the novel progresses. Until the revision of Schleiermacher's list of cardinal virtues on page 167, which occurs shortly after the beginning of the fifth monthly installment, the two American texts are nearly identical; but after this point the texts vary, sometimes considerably. In a count based on the quantity of material in the monthly divisions in Macmillan's Magazine [transplanted to weekly Harper's Bazar portions and to the Harper book edition], the Harper book edition has an average of more than twenty readings different from the Harper's Bazar text in each of the eighth, ninth, tenth, and twelfth monthly sections. Evidently, as Hardy neared the end of writing The Woodlanders, he felt he had more time to devote to the second reading of proof sheets to be sent to America.

In this and in the preceding sections I have given a number of reasons for believing that Hardy sent more than one set of advance proof sheets to America as a precaution against loss, one set being used by the printers employed by Harper's Bazar, the second set by the printers setting up the type for the Harper book edition. Hardy, who apparently never wearied of reading his own work, corrected and revised the two sets separately.

Awareness of this procedure makes possible a logical explanation for a textual variant that commentators on Hardy's American publications have pointed out but have not been able to explain. The suggestive sentence concluding Fitzpiers' first seduction of Suke — "It was daybreak before Fitzpiers and Suke Damson re-ëntered Little Hintock" (p. 178) — is in Harper's Bazar while it is absent from the authorized American book edition published by Harper and from Macmillan's Magazine. (It is in the edition published by the pirates, who lifted this portion of the text from Harper's Bazar.) Hardy's career-long difficulties in communicating the earthy aspects of life to a prudish Victorian

society whose family reading came largely in the form of serial fiction are well-known. Hardy, in his forthright desire to earn a living with his fiction, acquiesced as far as he was able to the demands of his editors to underplay the sexual element of his novels' conflicts. He virtually rewrote Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure to make them acceptable in England as serials (cf. Purdy, pp. 68-73, 88-90); and his treatment of the sentence quoted above reveals his sensitivity to possible objections from guardians of his nation's moral sense. A marginal note next to this sentence in Hardy's manuscript directs, "Omit for mag.", that is, for Macmillan's Magazine. Evidently, however, Macmillan's printers set the sentence in type, and Hardy left it in the first set of advance proofs sent to America and marked it for deletion in the second set. One notes with wry amusement that this sentence, thought too incendiary for English magazine readers, passed through the Harper's Bazar editorial offices without removal or alteration except in the spelling of "re-entered"). Apparently American serial readers were not thought to be as sensitive in general as English serial readers; in addition to the "daybreak" sentence above, two expressions of "My God!" remain (pp. 293, 350), demonstrating a more liberal editorial policy than existed in England, where "My God" was replaced in Macmillan's Magazine by "My heaven!"

III

Besides more concretely establishing differences between the American book text and the English serial, presentation of a few of the revisions made for Macmillan's Magazine illustrates the sort of thing that Hardy as an artist gave attention to. Touches of humor concerning the servant Grammer's sale of rights to her corpse to Fitzpiers for physiological experiments are added to the English serial version by references to "the head in question" and "heathen's chopper" (pp. 142, 143). An erudite adjective, "accipitrine" (p. 254), is deleted for Macmillan's Magazine, as are "macaroni" and a technical architectural term, "double-cyma," in references to Fitzpiers (p. 120). Redundancies are taken out: in the American texts, Fitzpiers describes his youthful love for Felice as "a colossal passion in posse; a giant in embryo;" in Macmillan's Magazine he terms it "a colossal passion in embryo" (p. 227). A word in Hardy's manuscript which Mowbray Morris, the editor of Macmillan's Magazine, had not liked, "horizontality,"[5] was left

in the proof sheets bound for America, but Macmillan's Magazine does not contain it. Also, in the Harper text as in the manuscript Mrs. Charmond had always been rich, while in Macmillan's Magazine she evidently married her husband for his money; the English version thereby makes more understandable the intensity of her interest in her frustrated youthful affection for Fitzpiers. This change in Mrs. Charmond's character occurs through two revisions: Fitzpiers' statement that "you have grown rich" had been in the American texts "You are still rich" (p. 227); and Felice says that her mother had prevented a lasting acquaintance with Fitzpiers, in the American texts because "she knew my disposition," in Macmillan's Magazine because "she knew my face was my only fortune" (p. 226).

One interesting category of variants, certain manuscript passages that were published in America but not in Macmillan's Magazine, implies that the American text represents to a certain degree Hardy's intentions more fully than does the English serial. But the likely explanation for this fact is entirely non-aesthetic; the editors of Macmillan's Magazine were forced to excise several passages in order to fit Hardy's copy into available space in their magazine. Proof of this assertion is circumstantial: the eighth, ninth, and twelfth monthly portions in Macmillan's Magazine, from which the following material was deleted, end flush on the bottom of the last page given to the particular month's serial. A 250-word-long passage describing a meeting in church between Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond early in their affair is in the American text (p. 260), as are the following italicized passages describing Mrs. Charmond's haste and emotion in returning home after her trip to Melbury's on the night of Fitzpiers' accident:

Also contained in the manuscript and the American texts of The Woodlanders, though not in the English serial, are Grace's wish that either she or Marty had been Giles's wife "for a little while, and given the world a copy of him who was so valuable in their eyes" (p. 404),

a long sentence commenting upon Fitzpiers' "marvellous escape from being dragged into the inquiry" following Mrs. Charmond's death (p. 404), and Tim Tangs's exclamation at finding the man-trap (p. 423). Of these deletions from the manuscript and American readings from Macmillan's Magazine, the last two were reinstated into the English text in the English first edition [text number 5 of the list at the beginning of this paper].

IV

In addition to the passages already cited, which undergo only one alteration, a relatively sizable number of passages with multiple variants offer further evidence of what I have asserted about Hardy's creative methods; that is, they represent his perpetual desire to improve upon what he had once done. After one or more readings, during which he would make a number of changes, he sent each of the two sets of advance proofs to America. Then he would proofread again for the English serial, making new changes and rechanging passages already altered in the America-bound sheets. There are several of these "double-variants" which indicate Hardy's tentative, experimental approach to revision. For the purpose of more clearly distinguishing between the two American texts, I discuss in turn the passages that were first affected in the Harper's Bazar text and then those whose first alteration occurs in the Harper book text.

The variants in Harper's Bazar which are mentioned below remain in the Harper book, as did those mentioned in Section I of this article; i.e., they receive their second revision in Macmillan's Magazine. In the manuscript, nature has "a curious perversity," in the Harper text "a serious apparent perversity," and in Macmillan's Magazine "an apparent perversity" (p. 136). In the manuscript, Fitzpiers "went to the door" to listen to Melbury's men talk about Mrs. Charmond's fretfulness, in the Harper text he "half opened the casement," and in Macmillan's Magazine he "half opened the window" (p. 298). An unconsciously half-humorous image in the manuscript, presenting Melbury "drawing the skin of his face together" before he whips away his arm from Fitzpiers' waist at hearing his son-in-law's drunken confessions of indifference to his wife, evolves into a slightly more realizable image in the Harper text, "the skin of his face compressed" (p. 307). Still, the omission of the description altogether for Macmillan's Magazine is probably to be preferred, since neither image can be readily pictured by the reader.

The Harper book text also contains textual phenomena showing that Hardy "tested" revisions, altering or rejecting initial revisions. In the following discussion, it is understood that the manuscript reading is also in Harper's Bazar — that is, that the Harper book text

alone contains the American variant. Again, the second revision is in Macmillan's Magazine. These revisions, while fairly numerous, are minor. They include both additions to the text and revisions of extant passages. For example, to the Harper book text is added a Shakespearean allusion, "like Horatio," which in Macmillan's Magazine is revised further to "like Hamlet's friend" (p. 264). An animistic description added in the second set of proof sheets about "funereal trees" singing dirges occurs in a different context in Macmillan's Magazine than it had in the Harper book text, and it also acquires a slightly different wording in the English serial. In the Harper book the passage is: "Deep darkness circled her about, the funereal trees rocked and chanted their diriges and placebos around her and she [Grace] did not know which way to go" (p. 293; italics mine). Feeling perhaps that "placebos" was too esoterically ironic, Hardy deleted the ingratiating quality of the sound of wind in the trees for Macmillan's Magazine, and corrected the spelling of "dirges:" "Mrs. Charmond's furs consoled Grace's cold face; and each one's body, as she breathed, alternately heaved against that of her companion; while the funereal trees rocked, and chanted dirges unceasingly" (p. 292). Plants crushed by the wheels of Melbury and Grace's gig are "strange" in the manuscript, "strange and ordinary" in the Harper book, and "strange and common" in Macmillan's Magazine (p. 164). In the manuscript Melbury tells Grace that if she marries Fitzpiers she will have "a blithe romantical life;" in the Harper book it is "a high intellectual life," and in Macmillan's Magazine "a high, perusing life" (p. 192). Mrs. Charmond's noble spirit is subject to "fierce assaults of introspection" in the manuscript, to "fierce periods of stress and storm" in the Harper book, and to "fierce periods of high-tide and storm" in Macmillan's Magazine (p. 281). Giles "said" in the manuscript, "said . . . within himself" in the Harper book, and "said . . . to himself" in Macmillan's Magazine (p. 350). In order to prevent her from realizing the sacrifice he is making by sleeping outside while giving her his hut, Giles hides from Grace his "pallor" in the manuscript, his "color" in the Harper book, and his "sickliness" in Macmillan's Magazine (p. 367).

V

To discuss all of the Harper's Bazar and Harper book variants in detail would only bury the basic issues in an accumulation of individual words and short phrases. The striking thing is not that two authorized American versions have gone so long unnoted, but that Hardy would make the effort each month to read consecutively each of the two sets of advance proofs to be sent to his American publisher and nonetheless content himself with making only picayune revisions. The

American texts reveal no trend in either revision. It would seem, then, that Hardy was not interested in shaping or was not able to shape his overall creative vision until the proofs of the entire novel were in his hands, which situation naturally was not possible at this time because the serialization of The Woodlanders began before Hardy had finished writing the novel.

There is no reason to give credence to a natural suspicion, that someone in America may have written the significant variant passages in the two Harper texts. The variants in both Harper's Bazar and the Harper book are logical middle stages in the evolution of the affected passages from the manuscript to the Macmillan's Magazine text. This generalization holds true even though a few revisions do not fit into the scheme of progressive revision discussed in this article but follow an "alternate text" (1, 3; 2, 4) pattern. An example of an "alternate text" pattern is Melbury's reference to his second wife as Grace's "mother-law" in the manuscript (1) and the Harper book (3), but as Grace's "mother-in-law" in Harper's Bazar (2) and Macmillan's Magazine (4) (p. 185). Timothy, one of Melbury's workmen, uses the phrase "sole of his foot" in the manuscript and the Harper book, "sole of his boot" in Harper's Bazar and "sole of his boots" in Macmillan's Magazine (p. 255). An occasional variant in Harper's Bazar is a relative pronoun which clarifies an otherwise confusing sentence — a sentence that is published in the Harper book as Hardy originally wrote it. But these exceptions are minor, and were probably made either by Harper's Bazar proofreaders or by Hardy himself, who omitted to transfer the revisions to the second set of proofs, or — as in the case of "sole of his boot" — may have retained the manuscript reading in the second set of proofs and made a different revision in the proof sheets meant for Macmillan's Magazine. In the face of the preponderant evidence for progressive revision of the proof sheets destined for Harper's Bazar, the Harper book, and Macmillan's Magazine, these atypical variants are important only because they offer further evidence that the two American versions were set up from different copy. Certainly, the double variants referred to in Section IV of this paper demonstrate prima facie that a dissatisfied mind is striving consistently over a number of readings to achieve particular effects. Moreover, the longest addition, that describing Mrs. Charmond's artificial manner in receiving Melbury, is written in a style not unlike Hardy's frequent ponderosity in the setting of scene and description of motive. And so, even had Hardy given the Harper publishing house permission to alter passages of The Woodlanders as he had Atlantic magazine to alter those of Two on a Tower,[6] it is unlikely that any of the important passages discussed here were written by someone in America. The

improbability is confirmed by the inclusion of several of these passages in Macmillan's Magazine months before the publication of the American first edition.

To summarize the key findings of this investigation, then: In view of the number and types of differences among the four earliest versions of The Woodlanders, it is evident that Hardy sent in monthly installments one set of advance proof sheets to America for use by Harper's Bazar after he had made only a comparatively few revisions. These revisions were copied onto another set of proof sheets. This second set was sent to America after more revisions were made, and this set provided copy for the Harper book text. The absence of trends in the Harper book revisions indicates that this second set of proofs was also mailed in installments, probably within a few days after the installments of the first set; this indication is supported by noting that the main purpose of the second set was precautionary, against loss of the first set. In revising still a third set of proofs, to be returned to Macmillan's Magazine, Hardy altered or deleted some of the revisions made in the two sets of advance proofs sent to America in addition to making many completely new revisions.

These findings add impetus to the contemporary scholarly view that Hardy was a conscientious craftsman, concerned that his product be as good as he could make it.[7] Obviously, the former view, that Hardy's awkward prose style can be attributed to his giving less than his best efforts because of his contempt for fiction when compared to poetry, is completely mistaken. Hardy was content with his work only after numerous rereadings and revisions that would have stultified the creativeness of a less dedicated writer. Indeed, Hardy was an inveterate reviser, given to making basically nit-picking revisions as well as — if not more than — to making significant changes. That he paid little attention to subsequent American printings of The Woodlanders does not negate this view, although he obviously held a less vigilant attitude toward his American texts once he had published them than toward his English texts, which he continued to revise intensively until 1912.[8]

Notes