'Tess' — Thomas Hardy

Leslie Ward ('Spy') caricatures the Dorset novelist Thomas Hardy in the year Tess of the d'Urbervilles was published — the plate's caption, 'Tess', names the book rather than the man. Hardy stands three-quarter length, gripping a walking cane with both hands: bowler hat, tan lounge coat over a dark waistcoat, striped trousers, spats. The face is the caricaturist's instrument — a ruddy, heavy-lidded expression beneath a ginger moustache suggests a country solicitor slightly out of his depth in London. The chromolithograph was printed by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son.