ABSTRACT
The opening three leaves of the manuscript, measuring 61;4" x 8", are located at the Heinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. The leaves are sewn in a folded sheet of fine paper, on which Hardy has written "'What the Shepherd Saw" A tale written in 1881, & published in English and American Periodicals. Recently included in Collected Works in the volume entitled "A Changed Man". Original MS, being First Rough Draft. (3 pages only - the remainder lost.) Thomas Hardy.' At the head of the first page alongside the title, Hardy has noted in red ink '[First rough Draught] (1881)', and at the end he added '(Caetera desunt)'. This three-page fragment was one of three which Mrs HardY. sent in February 1916 for a Red Cross Sale at Christie's on 26 April 1916.2 In an unpublished letter to Clement Shorter, wrongly dated by Hardy as 16 December 1912, he says of 'What the Shepherd Saw' that 'I have quite forgotten the story. Though I imagine it to be worth little'. 3
'I have come, Fred, because you entreated me so. What can have been the'. For a first rough draft, it is remarkably free of deletions and alterations. There are only some thirty occasions where the serial does not follow the MS. reading, and these are nearly all individual words or short phrases. The title of the opening section of the story is given as '+Be first night', and the serial follows this revised form.
