- London : The Bookplate Society
- 8vo.
- paper wrappers.
- 8 volumes in 16 numbers.
- Order Nr. 33697
- Price: $ 280.00

One of 200 bound thus as the main edition. Signed by Mark Cazalet who chose the poems and created the images. Thomas Hardy's wife Emma died in November 1912, in the attic room of their house where she had lived estranged from him. Their marriage had hardened into an empty shell and Hardy had long been in love with Florence Dugdale, whom he married the following year.
However, on reading Emma's secret memoirs detailing his cruelty and the breakdown of their marriage, Hardy was hit by an avalanche of grief. He returned to the north Cornish coast of their courtship and spent the rest of 1912 and 1913 producing his most lyrical and abiding collection of poetry.
Mark Cazalet has created images to act as visual equivalents for the extraordinary insights Hardy found in the depths of his experience, rather than attempting his topography or historical period. He arranged the sequence to suggest his gradual reconciliation to guilt and grief, resolving into a dawning sense of acceptance. It was a long and painstaking task to cut wood and linoleum for the twenty-two large images. Each page opening involves three colours on characterful Italian white paper, and the inks were specially mixed by Canfield Colours from natural pigments.