SOURCE: Weber, Carl J. “Hardy: A Wessex Seesaw.” Saturday Review of Literature 34 (6 January 1951): 24-5.

In the following essay, published during a period of decline in Hardy criticism, Weber urges a reconsideration of Hardy's literary contributions.

Thomas Hardy's first novel appeared in 1871, and those few persons who bought it had to pay only ＄7.50 for a set of three volumes. In 1926 when George Barr McCutcheon's copy of the same novel was sold at auction in New York it brought ＄2,100. Only three years later when Jerome Kern's copy of this same work was auctioned off its purchaser paid ＄4,800. But when Paul Lemperly's copy was sold at auction in 1940 the novel brought only ＄27.50.

These figures are quoted, not with the misguided idea that a revaluation of Hardy's books is a matter of dollars and cents, but because the figures tell more than a commercial story. For the rise from ＄7.50 up to ＄4,800 and...