New readers are advised that this Note on the History of the Texts makes the details of the plots explicit.
As Kristin Brady explained in her textual note to The Withered Arm and Other Stories, the companion volume to this one, choice of copy-text for Hardy’s short stories is complicated by the fact that many of them were not collected for volume publication until some years after initial magazine appearance. Given the presiding principle of copy-text selection for this series, that it offers Hardy’s texts ‘as [his] readers first encountered them, in a form of which he in general approved, the version that his early critics reacted to’ (General Editor’s Preface), Brady elected to privilege the first versions for which Hardy invited the attention of reviewers by collecting them in book form. These are also the versions that allowed him to restore, as he saw fit, original intentions that the fastidiousness of magazine editors may have caused him to modify. The only exception to this rule, maintained in this volume, is that those stories that remained uncollected until the publication of A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913), some thirteen years after the last of them had actually been written, are printed in their serial versions to avoid compromising period integrity by the adoption of later changes contemporary with Hardy’s revision of all his work for the 1912 Wessex Edition.1
The copy-text for ‘The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion’ is the first English edition of Life’s Little Ironies, published in 1894. The story had previously appeared in two instalments (4 and 11 January 1890), in the Bristol Times and Mirror. It was the last of four sold to Tillotson for syndication in provincial newspapers (see Purdy, 82 and 340–41), and was reprinted in Three Notable Stories (London: Spencer Blackett, 1890). For the Wessex Edition it was transferred to Wessex Tales, where Hardy felt it ‘more naturally’ belonged (see Author’s Prefatory Note to 1912 Life’s Little Ironies), at the same time reverting to its shorter serial title, ‘The Melancholy Hussar’. The most significant revisions made for first volume publication relate to elaboration of the execution scene, with incorporation of the contemporary details drawn from the Morning Chronicle that Hardy had summarized many years earlier in the ‘Trumpet-Major Notebook’ (see Personal Notebooks, 124–5). A fair-copy manuscript of the story survives in the Huntington Library, and a fragment of an earlier draft in the Iowa State Historical Department (see Ray, 25–30).
‘A Tragedy of Two Ambitions’ was first published in the Universal Review (December 1888), accompanied by six illustrations by George Lambert. It was subsequently collected for 1894 Life’s Little Ironies, the copy-text for this edition. For volume publication Hardy added one of the most evocative elements of the story, the episode of the discarded walking-stick growing into a poplar. As part of the general distribution in October 1911 of his manuscripts to museums and libraries that Hardy arranged through Sydney Cockerell, the fair-copy manuscript of the story was presented to the John Rylands Library at Manchester University.
‘The First Countess of Wessex’ appeared originally in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (December 1889), with four illustrations each by C. S. Reinhart and Alfred Parsons (see Appendix II). It was then collected for 1891 A Group of Noble Dames, the copy-text for this edition, where it became the opening story. Since the manuscript, sold in New York on 29 May 1906, subsequently disappeared (see Purdy, 65), it is impossible to know how accurately the collected version restored an original that had been bowdlerized for magazine publication, but certainly there are major differences between the two. In the serial version Betty does not deliberately contract smallpox, so her condition does not provide the occasion for the somewhat bizarre testing of Phelipson’s and Reynard’s devotion. Nor is there an elopement, Tupcombe having destabilized the ladder under the misapprehension that Reynard is with Betty, thereby causing the death of Phelipson in a fall. This also means that Betty endures ‘long slow months of listlessness’ while mourning both father and lover, agreeing to receive Reynard only after her mother has advised him to approach her again; hence there is no pregnancy resulting from clandestine meetings between Betty and Reynard. The result is a story made appropriate to magazine publication by the sacrifice of much of its ironic point. Despite its greater forthrightness about sexual matters, the collected version may itself have included modifications designed to avoid offending the sensitivities of the Ilchester family (see Appendix II).
The serial version of ‘Barbara of the House of Grebe’ was also collected for 1891 A Group of Noble Dames, the copy-text for this edition, having formerly been published, in substantially bowdlerized form, under the title ‘Barbara (Daughter of Sir John Grebe)’ as one of the initial six stories collected as ‘A Group of Noble Dames’ in the Graphic Christmas Number (December 1890). As ‘Barbara, Daughter of Sir John Grebe’ it also appeared, with only minor excisions, in an American serialization, again as part of the six-story version of A Group of Noble Dames that ran in four issues of Harpe’s Weekly between 29 November and 20 December 1890. The removal of some of the more shocking details for the Graphic (most especially Uplandtowers’ continued torture of Barbara by his placing of the mutilated statue in their bedroom for three nights to force her to declare her love for him and revulsion from Willowes) has the attendant effect of making Uplandtowers appear less grotesquely cruel. In all, the Graphic offers a less sado-masochistically charged story, with Barbara responding somewhat less hysterically to her disfigured first husband and being considerably less brutally treated by her second. The manuscript used for the Graphic version of A Group of Noble Dames (showing the material described above that was removed for the actual Graphic appearance) survives, and was presented by Hardy to the Library of Congress in October 1911.
‘For Conscience’ Sake’ was published (its title lacking the apostrophe) in the Fortnightly Review for March 1891, and subsequently collected for 1894 Life’s Little Ironies, the copy-text for this edition. The sexual offence for which Millborne seeks to atone having taken place in the distant past, the story’s subject-matter presented fewer problems for serial publication, and distinctions between versions are therefore relatively minor, showing Hardy’s attention to textual detail rather than attempts to satisfy editorial caution. The manuscript was given to Manchester University Library in the October 1911 dispersal.
‘The Son’s Veto’ – first published, accompanied by two illustrations by A. Forestier, in the Christmas Number of the Illustrated London News (1 December 1891), and collected for 1894 Life’s Little Ironies (copy-text for this edition) – also shows relatively minor distinctions between serial and book versions. The most substantial changes made for the volume are more elaborate descriptions of the Covent Garden-bound produce carts and a slight heightening in the odiousness of Randolph, most notably by the addition of the requirement that his mother kneel before taking the oath that she will not marry Sam Hobson. A manuscript survives and is now at Geneva’s Martin Bodmer Foundation.
Serial publication of ‘On the Western Circuit’ presented Hardy with somewhat greater difficulties again. In England it appeared in the English Illustrated Magazine (December 1891), with four illustrations by Walter Paget, and in America in Harper’s Weekly (28 November 1891), with one illustration by W. T. Smedley, before being collected for 1894 Life’s Little Ironies, the copy-text for this edition. For the serials, Edith Harnham becomes a widow living with her uncle, thereby removing the taint of infidelity from her infatuation with Raye. Nor does Anna become pregnant in the serials, a modification that makes Edith’s complicity in the deception that leads to the marriage all the more questionable. ‘On the Western Circuit’ is the third of the manuscripts presented to a Manchester institution, in this case the Manchester Central Public Library, in the 1911 distribution.2
‘The Fiddler of the Reels’ was originally published in Scribner’s Magazine (May 1893), with an illustration by W. Hatherell. Collected for 1894 Life’s Little Ironies, the copy-text for this edition, it underwent minor modifications that make Ned less malleable while Car’line becomes more manipulative before and more peevish after their marriage. There is no surviving manuscript.
‘An Imaginative Woman’ first appeared in Pall Mall Magazine (April 1894), with seven illustrations by Arthur Jule Goodman. Its first book publication, the copy-text for this edition, was in Wessex Tales, Volume XIII of the 1895–6 Osgood, McIlvaine Wessex Novels edition, being transferred in 1912 to Life’s Little Ironies, as Volume VIII of the Wessex Edition. Many of the more significant revisions took place in manuscript, particularly in relation to what would have been the two most potentially controversial scenes: Ella Marchmill’s taking of Trewe’s photograph into her bed and her husband’s closing fury at what he imagines to be the son’s paternity. The manuscript of ‘An Imaginative Woman’ went to Aberdeen University Library in the 1911 distribution.
‘A Changed Man’ appeared originally in the Sphere in two instalments (21 and 28 April 1900), with an illustration by A. S. Hartrick accompanying each. This is the copy-text for this edition. It also appeared, unillustrated, in America in the Cosmopolitan (May 1900). It was not collected until 1913, when it became the title-story in A Changed Man and Other Tales. A manuscript survives in the New York Public Library (Berg Collection).
‘Enter a Dragoon’ first appeared in Harper’s Monthly Magazine (December 1900), with one illustration by A. Hayman (this serial version is again the copy-text). It too was collected for A Changed Man. Both stories received Hardy’s customary close attention at successive stages, but neither underwent major revision: the most interesting modifications involved the removal for book publication of a series of epigraphs that had appeared in the serial at the beginning of each section of ‘Enter a Dragoon’. No manuscript survives for ‘Enter a Dragoon’.
This edition follows exactly the chosen copy-texts, with minor exceptions. First, because the stories come from a variety of sources, I have standardized in the following instances: words with ‘ise’ and ‘or’ spellings have become ‘ize’ and ‘our’, respectively (e.g., ‘recognize’ and ‘honour’); ‘license’ has become ‘licence’; single quotation marks have been used, and punctuation at the end of a quotation has been moved outside the quotation marks, except in dialogue; M-dashes have become N-dashes, and 2M-dashes have become M-dashes; hyphens have been removed from such words and phrases as ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘tonight’, goodbye’ (or ‘goodby’), ‘good morning’, ‘good afternoon’, ‘good evening’ and ‘good night’; in order to remove inconsistencies, hyphens have been added where necessary to ‘turnpike-road’, ‘gravel-path’, ‘new-comer’, ‘trumpet-call’, ‘bugle-call’, ‘churchyard-gate’, ‘college-gate’ and ‘cathedral-choir’, but removed from ‘stepfather’, ‘stepmother’ and ‘churchyard’; hyphens are added where necessary to attributive phrases such as ‘nine-days’ wonder’ and ‘too-cold wife’ in ‘The First Countess of Wessex’, and a hyphen has been added to ‘semi-rural’ in ‘The Son’s Veto’; there is no full stop after titles such as ‘Mr’; punctuation appears in roman type after a word in italic, but remains in italic within a phrase or sentence in italic; ellipses have been standardized to three periods; and ‘gray’ has become ‘grey’. I have also silently corrected typographical errors. While this edition does not have the scope of a variorum, it does include in its Notes all textual variants that significantly affect emphasis or contribute suggestively to our understanding of Hardy’s compositional or editorial motivations.
1. For the most detailed and reliable analysis of the textual evolution of all stories in this selection, see Ray.
2. For the fullest description of the three Manchester manuscripts, see Alan Manford, ‘Life’s Little Ironies: The Manchester Manuscripts’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 72 (1990), 89–100.