Our latest “Document of the Week” was chosen by our Marketing and Editorial Assistant, Laura Wales. It is an instalment of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, published in The Graphic on 1 August 1891.
Prior to being published in book form, Tess of the D’Urbervilles was serialised in The Graphic, appearing weekly between July and November 1891. It was accepted by The Graphic only after it had been censored, with Hardy omitting or modifying several passages which were considered too shocking for a popular audience. The text had been turned down by several editors before this, due to its sexual content.
Living in a largely conservative society, Hardy believed that Britain was restricted by what he called “the censorship of prudery”. He saw literature as a vehicle for discussion and dissonance. Hardy therefore challenged late Victorian social norms in Tess, by exposing the rigid gender roles and sexual morality of the period.
Hardy’s original version of the text was published in three volumes later in 1891, and in one volume the following year. Despite the mixed reviews it received when it was first published, Tess of the D’Urbervilles is now considered one of Hardy’s greatest works.
Each instalment in The Graphic featured illustrations by the influential portrait artist, Hubert Herkomer, and his pupils Ernest Borough Johnson, Joseph Syddall, and Daniel A. Wehrschmidt. In the illustration that accompanies this instalment, Tess tries to evade the sexual advances of Alec.
Where to find this document
This document is from our collection The Graphic, 1869–1932. The collection collates nearly 117,000 images from almost 3,500 issues of the periodical. Initially, it was a competitor of The Illustrated London News (ILN), but it ultimately became one of the ILN’s sister publications. The Graphic captures the dramatic transformations that occurred within British society throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Visit the collection page to learn more.