ABSTRACT
Philip Brooks Two books belonging to Hardy, which his widow gave to Barrie, have a strong appeal. Barrie’s own inscriptions in them tell their story. One is a volume of Shelley which Hardy carried around with him and annotated in his early days as an architect, often reading aloud from it to other students and discussing it with them. The other is The Boy’s Own Book: A Complete Encyclopedia of All the Diversions ... of Boyhood and Youth. Barrie’s note on the flyleaf reads: ‘When T.H. was 12 years old he used to stare at this work in a bookseller’s window at Dorchester and crave to have it as his own. He saved up his pence for this end. One night he went with his father and others, as musicians, to a wedding feast but was told to decline monetary reward. The revelers, however, dropped many pennies in his cap, and after an internal struggle he pocketed them and so (as he used to tell) was able to buy the book’.
