The Trumpet-Major

This is the extended annotated edition including a rare biographical essay on the life and works of the author. The reader of Mr. Hardy's novel, "The Trumpet Major," will at once ask himself, "Is not this author making a brave struggle against the scepticism, the pessimism that have been assailing him? Will not the optimism of the poet and idealist finally conquer the pessimism of the realist?" If Mr. Hardy had died after writing "The Trumpet Major" the last question might well have been an...