Description

8vo., First Edition, with frontispiece in photogravure, 242 illustrations and half-tones in the text and double-page map, free endpapers very lightly spotted; original plum cloth, gilt back, gilt top, a very good, bright, clean copy. With 2pp publisher's advertisement at end. Issued in format matching that of Macmillan's definitive Wessex Edition, 1912-31. THE FIRST AUTHORITATIVE TOPOGRAPHICAL STUDY OF HARDY'S WESSEX. It was compiled and photographed by Lea with the full collaboration of Hardy; the two men completing a series of cycling tours as they revisited numerous sites recalled so vividly by the author. It is the first fruit of what has become a virtual sub-industry of topographical enquiry, and is the more valuable today since many of the sites have altered almost beyond recognition. The work has been many times reissued, but never to the standards of the original edition. SCARCE. Purdy, p.285.