His first published article appeared without signature in _Chambers's Journal_, on 18th March 1865, entitled, "How I Built Myself a House," and was of a semi-humorous character. But previous to this Hardy had written a considerable amount of verse, all of which, with the exception of one poem, _The Fire at Tranter Sweatley's_, was unfortunately destroyed. This Wessex ballad appeared, bowdlerised, in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ in November 1875. The ballad was first reproduced in its original form at the end of Mr Lane's bibliography, together with the novelist's biographical note on his friend and neighbour, the Rev. William Barnes, the Dorset poet, contributed to _The Athenæum_ in October 1886. Of Mr Hardy's remaining contributions to periodical literature in other directions than fiction I need, perhaps, only mention his paper on "The Dorset Labourer," published in _Longmans'_ in July 1893. _The Trumpet Major_ was published in 1881, and the next novel was _A Laodicean_, which appeared originally in _Harper's Magazine_. "The writing of this tale," says Mr Hardy in the new preface to the book, "was rendered memorable, to two persons at least, by a tedious illness of five months that laid hold of the author soon after the story was begun in a well-known magazine, during which period the narrative had to be strenuously continued by dictation to a predetermined cheerful ending. As some of these novels of Wessex life address themselves more especially to readers into whose soul the iron has entered, and whose years have less pleasure in them now than heretofore, so _A Laodicean_ may perhaps help to wile away an idle afternoon of the comfortable ones whose lines have fallen to them in pleasant places; above all, of that large and happy section of the reading public which has not yet reached ripeness of years; those to whom marriage is the pilgrim's Eternal City, and not a milestone on the way." Hardy's next novel, _Two on a Tower_, was published in three volumes in 1882. Four years elapsed before Mr Hardy's tenth novel, _The Mayor of Casterbridge_, made its appearance, though his story of _The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid_, which came out in _The Graphic_ Summer Number in 1883, was reprinted in book form in America in 1884. _The Woodlanders_ came next, this time through Messrs Macmillan, who published it in 1887 in three volumes. _Wessex Tales_, in two volumes, appeared in 1888, though the stories had been making their appearance in various periodicals since 1879.