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]