Beschreibung:

HARDY, THOMAS. A Group of Noble Dames. [London]: Osgood, McIlvaine [1891]. 8vo, original tan cloth, blocked in gilt and lettered in brown, very slightly soiled. FIRST EDITION, FIRST BINDING, of this collection of ten stories, PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by the author on a front flyleaf: "To The Earl of Lytton from Thomas Hardy June. 1891" (publication date was 30 May). Purdy, pp. 66-67; Sadleir 1106; Wolff 2976. The recipient was Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton (1831 - 24 November 1891), the first Earl of Lytton, statesman and author (under the pseudonym "Owen Meredith"). "Although he tended to refer to A Group of Noble Dames in somewhat deprecating terms, Hardy ventured none the less to send copies to several of his friends, including Gosse, Clodd, and Lord Lytton" -- Michael Millgate, Thomas Hardy (1985), p. 316.