[hardy-l] What do these books have in common ?

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Hardy would have been infuriated -- most likely.

  The essay collections don't sell at all --  with exception of the more 
innovative titles (such as Public Voice which has original TH 
material!)  -- they are what publishers call cornmeal.  Publishers place a 
high price on them so that libraries at least (which have to buy 
them)  will  provide funding (fodder) for publisher's longterm projects. 
Otherwise, the works themselves are of no value.

Macmillan of course has (or had) a commitment to publishing Hardy studies ( 
most of the titles you name ) but not for market reasons (they lose money 
on these "essay collections"). How much longer they'll produce 
these  collections to offset losses/taxes or whatever remains to be seen. 
Probably not for much longer.

But at least you are now impelled to use your library since you can no 
longer afford to buy these books - and that's not a bad idea!


  Best
Rosemarie

o. At 08:15 PM 11/5/2009, you wrote:
>Quick now . . . what do these books have in common ?
>
>Achievement of Thomas Hardy (Mallett)
>A Companion to Thomas Hardy (Wilson)
>The Expressive Eye . . .Work of Thomas Hardy (Bullen)
>Palgrave Advances in Thomas Hardy Studies (Mallett)
>Reading Thomas Hardy {Pettit}
>The Secret Life of Thomas Hardy (Neill)
>Thomas Hardy Texts and Contexts (Mallett)
>Thomas Hardy's Novel Universes (Gossin)
>Thomas Hardy's Public Voice (Millgate)
>Thomas Hardy A Textual Study (Ray)
>
>Answer - high price - they all will cost the purchaser over $100 each
>(some well over $100.)
>My next question is - why ?  What has made Hardy studies become so
>expensive in the last few years ?
>Is it because the market for such books is so limited that the
>publishing costs have to be high ? I wonder if Hardy would have been
>flattered by all this ?
>
>
>
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Rosemarie Morgan
Research Fellow, Yale University
President, The Thomas Hardy Association
Editor, The Hardy Review
124 Bishop St, New Haven, CT 06511

203 624-6976