ABSTRACT
Categorizing Hardy as a sensation novelist might seem equally unorthodox. Canonized as one of the “great” novelists of the nineteenth century, Hardy has been lauded as a powerful tragedian, not the purveyor of popular fiction-despite the initial publication of many of his novels in popular magazines such as Belgravia, the Cornhill, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Littell’s Living Age, the SemiWeekly New York Tribune, and the Sunday New York Times. Admitted deviations from the standards of “high” literature in Hardy’s work have been dismissed by critics as a byproduct of a crass literary marketplace, the unfortunate result of “compromises … forced upon his work” by original readers (Wright 115).
