HARDY, THOMAS. 1840-1928.

HARDY, THOMAS. 1840-1928.
2 Autograph Letters Signed ("Thomas Hardy"):
1. to Mr. Low, regarding the publication of a poem, 1 p, 12mo (180 x 113 mm), with conjoining blank, Dorchester, April 10, 1899, in ink on pale blue notepaper stamped with Max Gate letterhead, a few stains, numerical notation at upper left margin.
2. to Mrs. Jekyll, accepting an invitation, 1 p, 12mo (155 x 104 mm), with conjoining blank, Dublin, [1893], on letterhead notepaper of Vice Regal Lodge, Dublin.

Although history has remembered Thomas Hardy as one of the great English novelists, Hardy thought of himself more as a poet. Here he offers a poem to a Mr. Low, a publisher: "If you should still care to have something of mine in the first number of the new magazine, a little innocent poem of 3 stanzas that I have written is at your service...." In the second letter, he accepts an invitation, perhaps to an official event, while staying at Vice-Regal Lodge in Dublin. "... I feel certain that we who join you will get the best evening, unofficial though we may be." Hardy had been a friend of the father of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Houghton, and stayed at the official residence on his trip to Ireland in 1893.