[hardy-l] Hardy and the Three-decker - query

[Fraser Pakes]

I've been reading Daniel Pool's highly entertaining "Dickens' Fur  
Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters : The Rows an Romances of  
England's Great Victorian Novelists".
There's some discussion in it on the three-decker novel (so-named I  
understand, after the three-decker ships of line in the British Navy).

Pool notes that from 1834 books were increasingly published in 3- 
volume format  In 1894 there were184 titles in 3-decker format  
published in England. The format then rapidly declined in a few years  
( 52 in 1895, 25 in 1896, and 4 in 1897.)

Given these figures I took a look at the Hardy novel situation (Pool  
doesn't really address this, although it should be said in passing  
that he gives a good account of how Hardy relates to the other  
novelists of his time)
Desperate Remedies			1871		3-vol
Under the Greenwood Tree	1872		2-vol
Far From the Madding Crowd	1874		2-vol
The Hand of Ethelberta		1876		2-vol
The Return of the Native		1878		3-vol
The Trumpet Major			1880		3-vol
A Laodicean					1881		3-vol
Two on a Tower				1882		3-vol
The Mayor of Casterbridge	1886		2-vol
The Woodlanders			1887		3-vol
Tess of the D'Urbevilles		1891		3-vol
Jude the Obscure 			1896		1-vol
The Well Beloved 			1897		1-vol

All these novels fall between the 1834-1897 period of 3-decker  
publication . Circulating libraries such as Mudie and W.H. Smith  
apparently had put pressure on the publishers to produce novels in 3  
volume format as they gained more financially in renting out titles  
in 3-volume format than in single volume format.

Given that Under the Greenwood Tree would have been too short for a 3- 
vol format and that  Jude and the Well Beloved came right at the end  
of 3-decker publication so were likely to be in one volume state, do  
we know why FFMC,HE,MC,  weren't published in 3 volume format ?    
Certainly ,FFMC,and MC were in demand at lending libraries.
Fraser Pakes