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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
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:
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.
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