The Dynasts, a Drama of the Napoleonic Wars, in Three Parts, Nineteen Acts, & One Hundred and Thirty Scenes. (In Three Volumes)

New York: The MacMillan Company, 1931 Reprint dated 1931, likely rebound from the 3-in-1 issue of that year? (There is only a single copyright and title page amongst the three volumes here.) Hard cover, 16 mo (measuring 5 1/4 x 7 5/8 inches), rebound in a near contemporary fine binding of three- quarter crushed blue morocco over marbled paper-covered boards, with gilt banding to edge of leather, five raised cords to the spine, with titles and date in gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Green watercolor effect paste downs. No binder's signature in evidence. Collation: (2), xxii, 228 (2),Vol I. (2), xiii, 302 (2), Vol. II. (2) viii, 355, (2)pp., Vol. III. Condition: Very Good. Minor wear to joints. Small gouge to foot of spine Vol. II. Generally the books are clean, tight and only gently age-toned. This work has been described as poetic drama, written in blank verse, and not intended for performance. Author Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) first published the work in the years 1903, 1905 and 1908. "The sequence of major historical events--Trafalgar, Austerlitz, Waterloo, and so on--is diversified by prose episodes involving ordinary soldiers and civilians and by an ongoing cosmic commentary from such personified "Intelligences" as the "Spirit of the Years" and the "Spirit of the Pities." Hardy, who once described his poems as a "series of seemings" rather than expressions of a single consistent viewpoint, found in the contrasted moral and philosophical positions of the various Intelligences a means of articulating his own intellectual ambiguities. The Dynasts as a whole served to project his central vision of a universe governed by the purposeless movements of a blind, unconscious force that he called the Immanent Will. Though subsequent criticism has tended to find its structures cumbersome and its verse inert, The Dynasts remains an impressive--and highly readable--achievement, and its publication certainly reinforced both Hardy's "national" image (he was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1910) and his enormous fame worldwide." (Britannica) . American Edition [Reprint]. Hard Cover. Very Good Plus.