HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H01074 8/15/01 "CENSORSHIP IN FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD" ============================================================================== From: "carolfarrelly" Subject: Stephen's 'Grundian Cloud' Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 14:22:31 +0100 I wonder if anyone could help me with a query regarding _Far from the Madding Crowd_ and Hardy's famous little tale of editorial prudery or cowardice. When Leslie Stephen cautions Hardy to treat Fanny's seduction and pregnancy 'gingerly' he explains that three 'respectable ladies' had written complaining to him of an improper passage already published in the pages of the 'Cornhill'. Could anyone please identify the offending passage for me? Or does the passage remain tantalisingly unknown? I would refer to Rosemarie Morgan's wonderful _Cancelled Words_ for guidance, but I do not have my copy at hand. Thanking you in advance for your help, Yours Carol Farrelly email: c.m.farrelly@sussex.ac.uk ========== From: "James Gibson" Subject: Re: Stephen's 'Grundian Cloud' Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 23:31:27 +0100 Dear Carol, I hope the following will answer your query. Leslie Stephen wrote to Hardy in January 1874 saying 'I have ventured to leave out a line or two in the last batch of proofs from an excessive prudery of which I am ashamed; but one is forced to be absurdly particular.' Later, when Far From the Madding Crowd came out in book form, the Times reviewer quoted with commendation that very passage, and that enables us to identify it. Impressed by Hardy's ability to portray and use his rustic chorus, the reviewer quotes some of the chat about the fickle Mr Everdene who found it difficult to be both married and happy until he hit upon the idea of making his wife take off her wedding-ring when they made love: 'And so as soon as he could thoroughly fancy he was doing wrong and committing the seventh, a' got to like her as well as ever, and they lived on a perfect example of mutel love.' (Chap.6) Hardy has described the end of this incident with Stephen: As soon as I met him, I said, 'You see what the Times says about that paragraph; and you cannot say that the Times is not respectable.' He was smoking, and replied tardily: 'No; I can't say that the Times is not respectable.' I then urged that if he had omitted the sentences, as he had wished he had done, I should never have taken the trouble to restore them in the reprint, and the Times could not have quoted them with approbation. I suppose my manner was slightly triumphant; at any rate, he said, 'I spoke as editor, not as man. You have no more consciousness of these things than a child.' (Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen, F.W. Maitland. 1906, 275) ==========