For better or worse, Far from the Madding Crowd was the novel Victorian readers wanted him to write over and over again. One early reviewer was delighted by the pastoral elements: "when the sheep are shorn in the ancient town of Weatherbury, the scene is one that Shakespeare or that Chaucer might have watched." But what Hardy had promised as a quiet story took off in unexpected directions. Bathsheba is not merely tempted to make the wrong choice, but does so, and is only saved from the lifelong consequences of her mistake when a third suitor, Farmer Boldwood, murders the husband who torments her. Rather than a "pastoral tone and idyllic simplicity", noted a critic in the Westminster Review, what marked Far from the Madding Crowd was its "violent sensationalism": marital desertion, illegitimacy, death in childbirth, murder, attempted suicide and insanity. Yet this is not a dark novel. Nearly 30 years after its publication, Hardy wrote that it seemed to him "like the work of a youngish hand, though perhaps there is something in it which I could not have put there had I been older". That "something" has been variously identified as charm, amplitude, richness of incident and humour, or, more broadly, the assurance that despite the sense that deep social and economic changes are imminent, the closing marriage will maintain the community and its traditional order a little longer. If even here, in the last work he was to write from his childhood home in Bockhampton, Hardy could not wholly ignore the darker aspects of rural life, Far from the Madding Crowd remains the warmest and most celebratory of farewells.

The essays collected here range widely over Hardy's career as both a novelist and a lyric poet. They offer fresh reading of individual works--including his last novel, The Well-Beloved, and his first collection of verse, Wessex Poems --as well as exploring such central topics as the nature of storytelling, and the relations between poetry and song. Challenging, lucid and accessible, these essays provide new insight into the achievement of Thomas Hardy.

It is accompanied by more than 500 editorial footnotes, many new to this edition, that provide essential historical background and glossing of dialect words. Also new to the Second Edition are the twelve illustrations from the novel s first serial publication and Hardy s "Sketch Map of the Scene of the Story," which accompanied the 1878 edition. Again included is the "Map of Wessex of the Novels and Poems" from the 1912 Macmillan Wessex Edition of The Mayor of Casterbridge. Backgrounds and Contexts provides a useful "Glossary of Dialect Words" as well as four essays on the textual and publication history of the novel including pieces by Simon Gatrell and Andrew Nash all of which are newly included. Also included are six of Hardy s nonfiction writings on the dialect in the novel, the reading of fiction, and his correspondence, five of which are new to this edition. Criticism provides a selection of contemporary reviews that suggest The Return of the Native s initial reception as well nine of the most influential modern essays on the novel, by Gillian Beer, D. H. Lawrence, Michael Wheeler, Rosemarie Morgan, Donald Davidson, John Peterson, Richard Swigg, Pamela Dalziel, and Jennifer Gribble. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included."

Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

An unforgettably powerful tragedy, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the great classics of the late nineteenth century. This edition features illustrations by Sir Hubert von Herkomer and Joseph Syddall, and an afterword by Philip Mallett, editor of the Thomas Hardy Journal.

Tess Durbeyfield’s father forcibly sends her off to work for the wealthy D’Urberville family, hoping to alleviate their poverty and perhaps secure her a marriage to the cruel and manipulative Alec D’Urberville. His terrible assault upon her, and the subsequent child, form the terrible heart of Tess’s tragic life – as family, love and future are taken away from her by the repressive mores of Victorian society.

With an Introduction and Notes by Phillip Mallett, Senior Lecturer in English, University of St Andrews. Educated beyond her station, Grace Melbury returns to the woodland village of little Hintock and cannot marry her intended, Giles Winterborne. Her alternative choice proves disastrous, and in a moving tale that has vibrant characters, many humorous moments and genuine pathos coupled with tragic irony, Hardy eschews a happy ending. With characteristic derision, he exposes the cruel indifference of the archaic legal system off his day, and shows the tragic consequences of untimely adherence to futile social and religious proprieties

'York Notes Advanced' offer an accessible approach to English Literature. This series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, York Notes Advanced introduce students to more sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

'People were poorer and had not the comforts, amusements, or knowledge we have today; but they were happier.' Lark Rise to Candleford is Flora Thompson's classic evocation of a vanished world of agricultural customs and rural culture. The trilogy of Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green tells the story of Flora's childhood and youth during the 1880s in Lark Rise, in reality Juniper Hill, the hamlet in Oxfordshire where she was born. Through the eyes of Laura, the author's fictional counterpart, Flora describes the cottages, characters, and way of life of the agricultural labourers and their families with whom she grew up; seasonal celebrations, schooling, church-going, entertainment and story-telling are described in fond and documentary detail. Later, when Laura leaves school and becomes assistant to the village postmistress, the same loving detail brings vividly to life the rural post office and its staff. This edition of the trilogy reproduces the original wood-engravings by Julie Neild and includes a new introduction by Phillip Mallet which looks at the background to the books and their enduring popularity.

It has been collated with the Mellstock Edition of 1920, for which Hardy submitted final corrections. "Backgrounds and Contexts" provides new and invaluable source material on Victorian Dorset and, in particular, Dorchester, Hardy s native home and the town upon which Casterbridge is based. Included are six of Hardy s nonfiction writings, notably excerpts from his essay "The Dorsetshire Laboure" (1883), in which he frankly comments on the social changes he has witnessed in the county. Hardy s Wessex is further examined in an essay by Michael Millgate, by maps of Casterbridge and Wessex, and by a key to local place names. Christine Winfield discusses the novel s manuscript and its complicated history. "Criticism" collects seventeen wide-ranging assessments of the novel--six new to the Second Edition--from both contemporary and modern critics, including Virginia Woolf, Albert J. Guerard, Julian Moynahan, John Paterson, Michael Millgate, Irving Howe, J. Hillis Miller, Ian Gregor, Elaine Showalter, George Levine, William Greenslade, H. M. Daleski, and Suzanne Keen. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included."

'Now there is a clarity. There is the harvest of having written 20 novels first'. - Ezra Pound. The essays collected here range widely over Hardy's career as both a novelist and a lyric poet. They offer fresh reading of individual works - including his last novel, The Well-Beloved , and his first collection of verse, Wessex Poems - as well as exploring such central topics as the nature of storytelling, and the relations between poetry and song. Challenging, lucid and accessible, these essays provide new insight into the achievement of Thomas Hardy.

This collection covers the range of Thomas Hardy's works and their social and intellectual contexts, providing a comprehensive introduction to Hardy's life and times. Featuring short, lively contributions from forty-three international scholars, the volume explores the processes by which Hardy the man became Hardy the published writer; the changing critical responses to his work; his response to the social and political challenges of his time; his engagement with contemporary intellectual debate; and his legacy in the twentieth century and after. Emphasizing the subtle and ongoing interaction between Hardy's life, his creative achievement, and the unique historical moment, the collection also examines Hardy's relationship to such issues as class, education, folklore, archeology and anthropology, evolution, marriage and masculinity, empire, and the arts. A valuable contextual reference for scholars of Victorian and modernist literature, the collection will also prove accessible for the general reader of Hardy.

This collection covers the range of Thomas Hardy's works and their social and intellectual contexts, providing a comprehensive introduction to Hardy's life and times. Featuring short, lively contributions from forty-three international scholars, the volume explores the processes by which Hardy the man became Hardy the published writer; the changing critical responses to his work; his response to the social and political challenges of his time; his engagement with contemporary intellectual debate; and his legacy in the twentieth century and after. Emphasizing the subtle and ongoing interaction between Hardy's life, his creative achievement, and the unique historical moment, the collection also examines Hardy's relationship to such issues as class, education, folklore, archeology and anthropology, evolution, marriage and masculinity, empire, and the arts. A valuable contextual reference for scholars of Victorian and modernist literature, the collection will also prove accessible for the general reader of Hardy.