HARDY (THOMAS) Tess of the D'Urbervilles. A Pure Woman, 3 vol., FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION, James Osgood, MacIlvaine & Co., 1891HARDY (THOMAS)Tess of the D'Urbervilles. A Pure Woman, 3 vol., FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION, half-titles, with final blank in volume 2, and preliminary blank and final blank in volume 3, AUTOGRAPH QUOTATION FROM THE NOVEL SIGNED AND DATED BY HARDY loosely inserted, publisher's smooth tan cloth lettered in gilt on spines, gilt-blocked design of honeysuckle blossoms on upper covers, new front endpapers to volume 1, volumes 2 and 3 re-cased with new endpapers at end of volume 3 and hinges strengthened, some soiling and rubbing, each volume in cloth chemise, housed together in morocco-backed slipcase [Purdy, pp.67-78; Sadleir 1114; Wolff 2993], 8vo, James Osgood, MacIlvaine & Co., 1891First edition of Hardy's "deeply imagined portrayal of a heroine moving through hopes and betrayals, surmounted difficulties and deceptive idylls, to a tragic conclusion whose 'justice' the author's passionate advocacy profoundly challenges. Tess is also the most eloquently written of the novels, and the one in which the natural world and the topography itselfthe landscapes Tess so doggedly traversesare most continuously and richly represented" (ODNB).Loosely inserted is an autograph quotation from volume 1, chapter 3 of Tess, describing the Durbeyville children ("... Helpless creatures who have never been asked if they wished for life on any terms, much less if they wished for it on... hard conditions") headed "Little Children", signed and dated by Thomas Hardy, 8 October 1892. This was the day on which the first part of his The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved appeared in The Illustrated London News.Provenance: Jessie Stillman Taylor, bookplate in volume 2; Sotheby's, 7 December 2006, lot 76.