The Well-Beloved [with Biographical Introduction]
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Product Description
This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction and Notes by Jane Thomas, University of Hull.
The Well-Beloved completes the cycle of Hardy's great novels, reiterating his favourite themes of man's eternal quest for perfection in both love and art, and the suffering that ensues. Jocelyn Pierston, celebrated sculptor, tries to create an image of his ideal woman - his imaginary Well-Beloved - in stone, just as he tries to find her in the flesh. Powerful symbolism marks this romantic fantasy that Hardy has grounded firmly in reality with a characteristically authentic rendering of location, the Isle of Slingers, or Portland as we know it. Overt exploration of the relationship between erotic fascination and creativity makes this novel a nineteenth-century landmark in the persistent debate about art, aesthetics and gender.
This volume breaks new ground by including in full the1892 serialised version of the novel – The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved.
About the Author
Thomas Hardy was a poet and novelist of the naturalist movement. He trained as an architect. He was a religious man who was also deeply influenced by Darwin and fascinated by ghosts and spirits. During his lifetime, he was best known for his novels. His stories combine nuanced description of natural surroundings with the sense of impending moral crisis. He claimed that poetry was his first love, though, and in recent years his poetry has received much critical acclaim.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I came to the read the Well Beloved after I had finished the obvious Hardy novels and read quite a lot of his short stories. So i was expecting the law of dominshing returns to apply. In the event I was proved happily wrong.
The lead character is quite obviously a character which hardy thought resembled himself and his own problems with his relationships with the women in his life. Jocelyn repeatedly falls head over heels in love wih a women and then places her on a pedestal as the perfection of womanhood. When the real woman fails to live up to this ideal, he looses all interest. Yet rather then seeing this fickleness as what it is, Joceyln rationalises that he is persuing a single perfect muse the "well-beloved" that temporarily inhabits a particular earthly female. This ideal leads to him being unable to commit to any one woman.
This theme of the destructive power of mens objectification of women as pure and innocent, is also central to "Tess" and "Jude". Angel Clare idealises Tess to the extent that he hypocriticaly and selfishly leaves her when he finds out she is not a virgin. Jude idealises Arrabella then later Sue even though both women in their own way are very different to his ideal. Arrabella he thinks is innocent and a child of nature (when she is most defiantly not), Sue he sees as an emancipated free spirited women (when she actually is in many conventional and trapped). However in the well-beloved Hardy treats this theme entirely differently. It is not treated as tradgedy, in fact the former 'Well-Beloved's' get on with their lives as Jocelyn looks increasingly desperate and ridiculous. It also differs from the other late novels by being highly structured and by shunning his usual realism for a more lyrical and stylised mode. This way it bares more of a simularity with some of his short stories then his later novels. The prose is also more playfull and purple then his usual style.
This novel may not rank up there with his five great wessx tradgedies but in its own quite different way it is classic Hardy in its own right.
The lead character is quite obviously a character which hardy thought resembled himself and his own problems with his relationships with the women in his life. Jocelyn repeatedly falls head over heels in love wih a women and then places her on a pedestal as the perfection of womanhood. When the real woman fails to live up to this ideal, he looses all interest. Yet rather then seeing this fickleness as what it is, Joceyln rationalises that he is persuing a single perfect muse the "well-beloved" that temporarily inhabits a particular earthly female. This ideal leads to him being unable to commit to any one woman.
This theme of the destructive power of mens objectification of women as pure and innocent, is also central to "Tess" and "Jude". Angel Clare idealises Tess to the extent that he hypocriticaly and selfishly leaves her when he finds out she is not a virgin. Jude idealises Arrabella then later Sue even though both women in their own way are very different to his ideal. Arrabella he thinks is innocent and a child of nature (when she is most defiantly not), Sue he sees as an emancipated free spirited women (when she actually is in many conventional and trapped). However in the well-beloved Hardy treats this theme entirely differently. It is not treated as tradgedy, in fact the former 'Well-Beloved's' get on with their lives as Jocelyn looks increasingly desperate and ridiculous. It also differs from the other late novels by being highly structured and by shunning his usual realism for a more lyrical and stylised mode. This way it bares more of a simularity with some of his short stories then his later novels. The prose is also more playfull and purple then his usual style.
This novel may not rank up there with his five great wessx tradgedies but in its own quite different way it is classic Hardy in its own right.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
After a holiday around Weymouth it only seemed apt for me to read a novel by the most famous author from the region. The Well Beloved is mostly set on the "isle" of Portland. It tells the story of the native-born, famous sculptor Jocelyn Pierston who falls in love with young ladies from three generations of the same Portland family.
The idea of the "curse" of the well-beloved travelling from mother to daughter after some wanderings in-between is an interesting one, albeit quite disturbing in a modern context though Hardy treats it with subtlety and sensitivity.
As expected, his prose is excellent though I found the novel to sag, in a literary and emotional sense, in the second third of the book when the 40 year old Piertson falls for the 20 year-old Avice the second. It does however pick up with the more benevolent intentions of the 59-year-old protagonist in the final part of the triptych.
As well as the superior, more cohesive whole novel first published in 1897, the New Wessex Edition also interestingly includes significantly different passages taken from the original 1892 magazine version of the story. Like most classic old novels, The Well Beloved is quite difficult going at times for the modern reader but ultimately well worth pursuing. Especially if you've just returned from a break near the Isle of Slingers...
The idea of the "curse" of the well-beloved travelling from mother to daughter after some wanderings in-between is an interesting one, albeit quite disturbing in a modern context though Hardy treats it with subtlety and sensitivity.
As expected, his prose is excellent though I found the novel to sag, in a literary and emotional sense, in the second third of the book when the 40 year old Piertson falls for the 20 year-old Avice the second. It does however pick up with the more benevolent intentions of the 59-year-old protagonist in the final part of the triptych.
As well as the superior, more cohesive whole novel first published in 1897, the New Wessex Edition also interestingly includes significantly different passages taken from the original 1892 magazine version of the story. Like most classic old novels, The Well Beloved is quite difficult going at times for the modern reader but ultimately well worth pursuing. Especially if you've just returned from a break near the Isle of Slingers...
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'The Well Beloved' was one of Hardy's last novels published in serial form in 1892, just a couple of years before his last 'Jude the Obscure'. It is set mainly on the Isle of Slingers (the Isle of Portland) and tells the story of sculptor Jocelyn Pierston's search for the ideal woman. I found it hard to warm to Pierston, who seemed to me to be cold and finicky (although he did thaw a little towards the end) and I couldn't really believe in him as a sculptor, except perhaps as a middle-class dabbler. Compared to Hardy's greatest novels where the characters' lives are determined by cruel fate or are blighted by mere chance, the premise of this book seems slight and ultimately I found I didn't really care about any of the characters. I've stayed on the Isle of Portland, visited its stone quarries and walked all round its coast but I got no real sense of the place from this book. All in all a disappointing read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Old fashioned love or just a creep?
Set partly on the Isle of Purbeck, but also with scenes in London and other locations which are namedropped by Hardy in other works, the story follows the life of Jocelyn Pierston. Read more
Published 15 days ago by S. Meadows
Too many printing errors!
I was very disappointed by this particular edition of the book. It has nothing to do with Thomas hardy himself (the poor man would turn in his grave if he could see this deplorable... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Jean-Luc Dancy
A fine end to Hardy's novel writing career
Hardy's last novel `The Well-Beloved' is suffused with a sadness and melancholy, low-key and muted in tone. Read more
Published on 30 Mar 2010 by Mr. T. Harvey
The Well Beloved - Wordsworth Classic
I am delighted with my book purchase and am amazed at your fast and efficient sevice during the busy month of December. This was a last minute Christmas present so thankyou.
Published on 7 Jan 2010 by Mrs. S. M. Clughen
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