A Laodicean was begun in 1880
at Upper Tooting. Although Hardy became ill in October of that year, he
continued writing by dictating the novel to his wife for the following
five months. Serialization had been arranged with Harper & Brothers in
April, and the novel appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine from
December, 1880 through December, 1881. The novel was published in America
by Harper & Brothers in an edition that duplicated the serialized
material, but the final British edition in three volumes with Hardy's
revisions appeared a week later in December, 1881. The delay in England
was an attempt to forestall piracy abroad, but a pirated American version
was published "almost immediately" (Purdy, 40).
