Binding for Thomas Hardy's ‘Tess of the D'Urbervilles’

Charles Ricketts

1891

Cloth binding with gilt overlays

7½ x 5 inches

This elegant design appeared on the boards of the three volume, first collected edition following its magazine serialization in The Graphic. Though linked to the novel's pastoral theme, the honeysuckle motif gives little sense of its tragedy, offering in its stead a version of Hardy's text as romantic idyll.

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Photograph and text by Simon Cooke

Reproduced by kind permission of an anonymous collector [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]