ABSTRACT
Reflecting on the first number of Far From the Madding Crowd, which came out, in serial form, in December 1873, Hardy responded with surprise to see his story placed at the beginning of the Cornhill magazine, with a ‘striking illustration’, for he ‘had only expected, from the undistinguished rank of the characters in the tale, that it would be put at the end, and possibly without a picture’ (Life, p.97).
