Thomas Hardy's 'Studies, Specimens &c.' Notebook

Thomas Hardy's Studies, Specimens &c. notebook stands almost alone as a witness to his exertions and aspirations of the 1860s, when he was already in his middle twenties but still working in London as an architectual assistant and only tentatively feeling his way towards as yet dimly glimpsed possibilities of literary expression and employment. Because so little documentation of any kind has survived for this early period of his life and work, the notebook is of extraordinary interest as containing detailed evidence of the untutored deliberateness with which Hardy was seeking to provide himself with a poetic background, educate himself in poetic techniques, and initiate a process from which he could perhaps emerge as a practising, even a publishing, poet. In private hands until very recently, and seen by only a very few scholars, Studies, Specimens &c.' dates from 1865-68, is entirely in Hardy's own hand, and consists of eighty-eight closely written pages of working memoranda, and quotations from other poets - mostly extracts a few words long in which underlining has been used to highlight individual images and word-usages. Although no drafts of actual poems are present, there are numerous instances of Hardy's seeking to generate a poetic, and sometimes erotic, language and imagery out of materials (e.g., an architectual textbook) apparently chosen precisley for their recalcitrance to such treatment. The edition itself seeks to reproduce typographically all essential features of the original document. The introductory material describes the notebook bibliographically, sets it in its biographical context, and discusses some of its more important technical features. Included in the extensive apparatus are textual notes, explications of Hardy's occasional quotations - indicating, in most instances, the editions or actual volumes he certainly or probably used. Explanatory notes are provided for - among other things - some erased but now partly recoved memoranda of Hardy's that appear to have significant biographical implications.

Review :
`its contents are of interest ... Attentiveness is indeed the hallmark of this notebook. ... the elucidatory material is scrupulously helpful' Times Literary Supplement 'a superb scholarly edition of this very important record of Hardy's early literary efforts has been prepared by Pamela Dalziel and Michael Millgate ... an invaluable guide through this thicket of Hardy's uses of quotation and personal amplification by identifying the source of each discoverable quotation - even the actual copy of the book Hardy used - and carefully discriminating Hardy's quotations from his own comments and experimental variations ... this fine example of meticulous editing makes it an appropriate memorial to a scholar whose work exhibited that combination of wide-ranging scholarship and scrupulous care for detail they have lavished on it.' Robert Schweik, SUNY at Fredonia, English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, Volume 38:1 1995 `Millgate and Dalziel have transcribed and annotated the Notebook with meticulous care.' Michael Thorpe, English Studies `a welcome addition to the growing collection of published Hardy notebooks, and will be an essential tool for anyone trying to assess the nature of Hardy's early self-education ... A well-organized index and the clearly keyed annotations, which allow the reader to search for particular authors and identify quotations easily, help contribute to the overall effectiveness of this new edition.' Catherine Maxwel, University of London, Review of English Studies, Vol. 47, No. 186, May '96