Letter from Thomas Hardy, Dorchester, to an unidentified recipient, 1896 May 27 : autograph manuscript signed.

Hardy states his succinct and unequivocal position regarding his own artistic integrity in the face of intrusive editors and publishers: "I have nothing [for a serial story] except a heap of ideas & outlines which may possibly be a story some day--I don't know when. Your undertaking not to interfere with the text would have been a great point, & I have already decided never again to alter a word for an editor--having been accused of doing it for profit, when the fact was that, having inadvertently entered into a contract, that was the only way out of it. With my thanks for your request I am / Yours faithfully / Thomas Hardy." Hardy's letter may be read in the light of his experience with Jude the Obscure, his last novel, which attracted considerable criticism when it was published in 1895.