Hardy Thomas - Cancelled Words

The purpose of this book is to present a collation and critical interpretation of the revisions made to Hardys holograph manuscript of Far from the Madding Crowd for its first publication in The Cornhill Magazine (Smith, Elder & Co., 1874). In order to highlight all interlinear and proof revisions of this manuscript I have included, with each and every citation, a corresponding citation from The Cornhill Magazine in so far as it differs from the original. Hardys holograph manuscript provided the copy-text, albeit with variations, for the Cornhill which, in turn, provided the copy-text for all subsequent editions including those we read today.

Hardys post-Cornhill revisions effected very few substantive changes; most were confined to enlarging and defining the topography of Wessex (see Appendices). His most extensive revisions occur either within the manuscript itself or at the proof-revision stage for the Cornhill. This is discounting accidentals. In keeping with the prevailing practice at the time, Hardy left the final punctuation of his text to the Cornhill compositors, who were instructed in the house-style of Smith, Elder & Co. Within the holograph manuscript itself there is no consistency of punctuation; there are long stretches of unmarked dialogue, exclamation marks used where compositors placed question marks and, in general, a decidedly open punctuation. In revising for the Wessex editions of his novels in the 1890s Hardy made widespread removals of the commas supplied by his publishers house-style; this conforms to his original method of writing with minimum use of commas in the holograph version of Far from the Madding Crowd.

What follows here is for the consideration of readers who may like to know something about my own methodology and the two textual versions of Hardys novel I shall be comparing and contrasting. My focus throughout this book is upon the creative mind at work; I have, therefore, taken the manuscript and the Cornhill versions side by side, reading the one alongside the other just as Hardys editor, Leslie Stephen, would have examined the one before admitting it into publication in the other. Where Hardy, sometimes on Stephens advice and sometimes under the pressure of his censorship, submitted changes not only in manuscript but also in proof, we can only map those changes with a view to interpreting their meaning, not their intentionality. Accordingly, each of the chapters that follow in this book offers specific interpretations of, say, the relevance of revisions made to Hardys characterisation of Troy ( examines issues of class and rural labour, as and when these become the focus of his revisionary concerns.

It is not always easy or possible to distinguish between the willing and the unwilling revising hand, and even, on some occasions, between that of editor and authoralthough as certain patterns and characteristics begin to emerge, this becomes less obscure. This does not, overall, impair our critical observation and understanding of the creative mind at work. To this end, and to overcome the time-consuming work and laborious attention that would be involved if I simply presented a list of cancellations and revisions to be collated, compared and interpreted by the reader, my approach is not only editorial, in so far as I am presenting hitherto unpublished portions of Hardys text, but also exegetical, interpretative and analytical.

The manuscript of Far from the Madding Crowd, commissioned in 1873 by Leslie Stephen, editor of The Cornhill Magazine, was tentatively begun by September the same year (some early drafts discarded) and was submitted to Stephen in small sections, anticipating each of the twelve monthly instalments running from January to December 1874. The manuscript was completed in August 1874, and Hardy never set eyes on it again.

Many years later, in 1918 he was surprised to hear from his former publishers, Smith, Elder & Co., that it had been found in their offices would he agree to its sale to raise funds for the Red Cross? He replied, on 23 January to Mrs Reginald Smith: