The novels of Thomas Hardy have often been regarded as cinematic in their scope and power, and they have inspired some of the most absorbing adaptations of fiction for the big screen. This collection of essays by prominent international Hardy scholars explores both successful and unsuccessful attempts to transfer Hardy's novels to the screen. It provides a fascinating illustrated history of the interpretation and recreation of Hardy's work, from the silent era to television. The essays highlight the challenging nature of Hardy's work, which finds its most powerful reflection in films by controversial directors such as Roman Polanski and Michael Winterbottom. Adaptations on screen have revived Hardy's reputation for new generations of readers, and have reinforced the continuing relevance of his works. This collection offers a stimulating starting-point both for the study of Hardy's novels as films, and of the ways in which cinema and television adaptations illuminate the novels.

The Bible, as this book demonstrates, plays a key role in nearly all D. H. Lawrence's work. It supplies not only the inspiration but on occasion the target for his parody. In D. H. Lawrence and The Bible, Terry Wright establishes that Lawrence was familiar with the modernist critique of the Bible by higher critics and by anthropologists of religion. He also argues, however, that Lawrence's playful reworking of the Bible, like that of Nietzsche, anticipates postmodernism. After considering the extraordinary range of Lawrence's reading and the inter texts between the Bible and Lawrence's own writing, Wright engages in a theoretically informed but clear exploration of the textual dynamics of his writing. Lawrence's writing is seen to reveal a prolonged struggle to read the Bible in a much broader spirit than that encouraged by orthodox Christianity. Wright's study sheds light not only on his work but on the Bible on the creative process itself.

The Religion of Humanity, first expounded by the founder of Positivism, Auguste Comte, focused the minds of a wide range of prominent Victorians on the possibility of replacing Christianity with an alternative religion based on scientific principles and humanist values. This new book traces the impact of Comte's 'religion' on Victorian Britain, showing how its ideas were championed by John Stuart Mill and George Henry Lewes before being institutionalised by Richard Congreve and Frederic Harrison, the leaders of the two main centres of Positivist worship. Widely discussed by scientists, philosophers, and theologians, it also attracted the attention of numerous literary figures, including Matthew Arnold, Walter Pater, and Leslie Stephen, achieving its widest circulation through the works of George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and George Gissing. A wide-ranging and interdisciplinary contribution to the history of ideas, this book sheds light on a significant but hitherto neglected strand of Victorian thought.

The novels of Thomas Hardy have often been regarded as cinematic in their scope and power, and they have inspired some of the most absorbing adaptations of fiction for the big screen. This collection of essays by prominent international Hardy scholars explores both successful and unsuccessful attempts to transfer Hardy's novels to the screen. It provides a fascinating illustrated history of the interpretation and recreation of Hardy's work, from the silent era to television. The essays highlight the challenging nature of Hardy's work, which finds its most powerful reflection in films by controversial directors such as Roman Polanski and Michael Winterbottom. Adaptations on screen have revived Hardy's reputation for new generations of readers, and have reinforced the continuing relevance of his works. This collection offers a stimulating starting-point both for the study of Hardy's novels as films, and of the ways in which cinema and television adaptations illuminate the novels.

The Bible, as Wright's book demonstrates, plays a key role in nearly all D. H. Lawrence's work. It supplies not only the inspiration but on occasion the target for his parody. After considering the extraordinary range of Lawrence's reading, Wright engages in a theoretically informed but clear exploration of the textual dynamics of Lawrence's writing. His writing is seen to reveal a prolonged struggle to read the Bible in a much broader spirit than that encouraged by orthodox Christianity.