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61 HARDY, Thomas – YOURIÉVITCH, Serge. Signed photograph of Serge Youriévitch’s bust of the author. inscribed from Thomas Hardy to John Drinkwater Original photograph inscribed “To John Drinkwater: Thomas Hardy” in the lower right corner: a gift from the elderly writer to the younger poet and dramatist. Drinkwater and Hardy enjoyed a regular correspondence and Drinkwater was responsible for a number of theatrical productions of Hardy’s work. In 1926 Hardy gave Drinkwater a tour of Dorchester, providing a guided tour of the locations that, four decades previously, had inspired The Mayor of Casterbridge . Drinkwater’s celebration poem on Hardy’s 85th birthday, “To Thomas Hardy”, was printed in The Sunday Times on 31 May 1925 and included the statement “Leader, we follow still / Your lyric will”. In his eighties, Thomas Hardy received numerous requests from artists and sculptors who were keen for the writer to sit for them. These requests prompted Florence Hardy to remark to Sydney Cockerell that “it seems rather late to have all these paintings and busts done”. From 25 to 30 August 1924 Hardy sat for the Russian sculptor Serge Youriévitch (1876–1979). As noted in Florence Hardy’s biography, “this was made in Hardy’s study at Max Gate, and though he enjoyed conversation with the sculptor he was tired by the sittings, probably on account of his age, and definitely announced
that he would not sit again for anything of the kind”. Michael Millgate notes that the sittings “so put him out that he would not speak at lunchtime while Youriévitch was there but sat with his face permanently hidden behind The Times ” (p. 510). The finished bust is now part of the collection of the Dorset County Museum. Original photograph (122 × 86 mm) mounted on card, framed and glazed (167 × 127 mm). Minor surface scratch, inscription very slightly faded, lacking one corner of card mount; a fine photograph. ¶ Michael Millgate, Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited , 2006. £3,750 [152228] 62 H.D. (Hilda Doolittle.) Palimpsest:- Paris: Contact Editions, 1926 The copy of a modernist publisher, signed by the author First edition, first printing, signed by the author on the front free endpaper, “H.D. London 1926”. This copy is from the library of publisher Donald S. Friede (1901–1965), with his art deco bookplate, designed by Miguel Covarrubias, on the front pastedown. This is the first of H.D.’s Magna Graeca cycle of novels. After being expelled from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, Friede tried nine jobs in three years before becoming a stock clerk at the publishing firm of Alfred A. Knopf. Deciding that his
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