U.K. Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge, has placed a temporary export bar on a collection of typescripts from contemporary dramatizations of the works of Thomas Hardy.  This will provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the collection in the United Kingdom.

The Minister’s ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). The Committee recommended that the export decision be deferred on the grounds that the collection is so closely connected with our history and national life that its departure would be a misfortune.

The poet and novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was born near Dorchester in Dorset and drew inspiration for his work from the local landscape and people. He set his novels, including “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” and “Far from the Madding Crowd”, in the south and south-west of England, to which he gave the fictional name of Wessex. A contemporary Dorchester-based amateur dramatic society called The Hardy Players staged adaptations of many of the novels, with input from Hardy himself, between 1908 and 1924.

The collection under export-deferral comprises annotated typescripts, prompt copies, actors’ parts, programs, posters and miniature mock-up scenery. Some of these were originally owned by Thomas Henry Tilley, one of the two local figures chiefly responsible for the productions. The prompt copies are particularly important because they give the dialogue as actually delivered, and the stage directions as performed, and are the closest we can now get to the experience of an original Hardy Players production. The collection demonstrates how the local community adopted Hardy and his works to sustain its own regional identity.

Christopher Wright, Reviewing Committee member, said: “This collection is closely associated with the life of a particular region, one given an enduring literary identity as Thomas Hardy’s Wessex. As well as providing information about the adaptation and staging of Hardy’s works, it also documents the reception of a major literary figure by the local community that inspired him.”

The decision on the export license application for the collection will be deferred for a period ending on 17 February inclusive. This period may be extended until 17 April inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the collection at the recommended price of £50,000 (excluding VAT) is expressed.

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