Hardy (Thomas).- Lea (Hermann) Important collection of c.259 original photographs of 'Wessex scenes', some window-mounted on paper or card, all identifying the location (and in some cases the novel in which it appeared) either with pen or pencil inscriptions on verso or on mounts, many in Lea's hand, one in Hardy's hand, some with instructions to publisher/printer about sizing, place in book, titling etc., mostly good condition, some faded, Dorset, v.s., [c.1900-12].

⁂ Hermann Lea (1869-1954) befriended Hardy in 1898 and they became close friends and travelling companions. As a photographer and author, Lea accompanied Hardy on extensive and thorough tours of Wessex - mostly comprising their native Dorset but also as far afield as Bath or Oxford - the region where Hardy based all his major works of fiction, taking numerous photographs of the places which Hardy himself would identify as being mentioned in his various novels. Following the publication of A Handbook to the Wessex Country of Thomas Hardy's Novels and Poems in 1905 Hardy collaborated with Lea in writingThomas Hardy's Wessex,the study that Macmillan published in 1913, profusely illustrated with Lea's own photographs, as an integral part of the Wessex edition of Hardy's works. It was the guide, with the approbatur and imprimatur of Hardy himself.

The photographs in this and the following 3 lots all come directly from Lea's own collection and represent those images used in or deemed not suitable or surplus to requirements for Thomas Hardy's Wessex. On his tours with Hardy Lea regularly took multiple photographs of a location and then, when the negatives were developed, selected the best image for reproduction. Lea used a "remarkable camera - the home-made super-zoom which finally could capture Hardy's long-lens vision of his emptied landscapes" (Rattenbury). After Lea's death, James Stevens-Cox visited his widow and bought the entire remaining archive of her husband's photographs. Many of the identifying pencil inscriptions on the verso of the photographs are in JSC's hand.

Some places are more fully represented than others - Dorchester, for example, has 20 images, including one with the pencil inscription by Hardy on verso "Good as a photograph (+ might be substituted for West Walk if that should fail) T.H." Other locations include Charborough (16), Corfe (8), Evershot (7), Poole (7), Portland (10), Puddletown (15), Salisbury (9), Sherborne (10).

There are a few Lea photographs in the Dorset County Museum but otherwise Lea photographs are virtually unrepresented in public collections.

Literature: Kester Rattenbury's The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy, Architect: Part III, January 2023.