London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1886. First edition. First edition in book form, representing the first publication of the novel in its entirety following its serialization, in bowdlerized form, in Graphic and Harper’s Weekly from January to May 1886. The book was published on May 10, 1886 in 758 copies, of which only 650 were bound; it is consequently scarce, especially so in the original cloth. Two volumes, octavo. Publisher’s advertisement leaf at end of each volume. Original blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt, decorative bands and floral decorations to spines and front covers in black, grey floral-patterned endpapers. This copy is from the library of Edwin B. Holden (1861 - 1906), an American book collector and the president of the Grolier Club in 1906, with his bookplates. Housed in a custom blue cloth slipcase and chemises. Cloth fresh, a few tiny marks, extremities minimally rubbed with a hint of wear to foot of spine of volume one. A Near Fine copy.

Like Hardy’s classic novels Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), The Mayor of Casterbridge is set in Wessex, the fictional English region of his own invention. The novel follows the life of its titular mayor, from his early twenties to his death, as he presides over his Dorchester-inspired country town. Casterbridge “is an extraordinary book…not a love story but a tragedy built around a single man…The book is squarely centered on this one man, strong, ignorant, energetic, driven by a sense of what he might achieve, which he fulfills once he sets his mind on doing so” (Tomalin, p. 205). Though the novel has received criticism for being too densely packed with events – the format of serial fiction pressed Hardy to craft a more elaborate plot more than he had initially intended – it is a “deeply imagined and meditated work, dramatic and poetic, the narrative is shaped on a grand scale and paced with extraordinary moments” (Tomalin, p. 207).

Purdy, pp. 50-51; Sadleir, XIX Century Fiction, 1111; Tomalin, Thomas Hardy (2007); Webb, pp. 19-20. Near Fine (Item #7202)