Thomas Hardy's Vision of Wessex

by S. Gatrell

Overview

Wessex did not spring full-born from Hardy's imagination when he began to write. The first part of the book reveals in detail how Wessex became what it is, geographically, socially and culturally, beginning with his fist poem in the 1860s and ending with Winter Words, his last collection of verse. The second (briefer) part is an account of the impact of Hardy's vision of Wessex on twentieth-century English culture, offering an explanation for Hardy's endurance as a popular novelist.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349411276
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/01/2003
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2003
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

SIMON GATRELL is Professor of English at the University of Georgia, USA. He has previously studied the development of the texts of Hardy's fiction in a number of essays, in critical editions of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree and The Return of the Native, and in a full-length account: Hardy the Creator: A Textual Biography. His most recent book was Thomas Hardy and the Proper Study of Mankind, and he is currently completing a biography of the Irish poet William Allingham.

Table of Contents

Preface List of Illustrations Introduction The Conception and Birth of Wessex Variations on the Original Theme The First Evolutionary Leap Tess of the d'Urbervilles Handling New Wessex Collected Editions 1 Collected Editions 2 The Poetry Cider, Mead and Ale Sounds The Languages of Wessex Wessex Rail Conclusion: Politics, Guides and Critics Index

Editorial Reviews

'...brings Gatrell's formidable knowledge of Hardy's textual history to bear on the region's imaginative evolution.' - Bharat Tandon, Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher