- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New edition edition (2 July 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0192835580
- ISBN-13: 978-0192835581
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,015,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Wessex Tales [with Biographical Introduction]
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Product Description
Product Description
In this, his first collection of short stories, Hardy sought to record the legends, superstitions, local customs, and lore of a Wessex that was rapidly passing out of memory. But these tales also portray the social and economic stresses of 1880s Dorset, and reveal Hardy's growing scepticism about the possibility of achieving personal and sexual satisfaction in the modern world. By turns humorous, ironic, macabre, and elegiac, these seven stories show the range of Hardy's story-telling genius. The critically established text, the first to be based on detailed study of all revised texts, presents manuscript readings which have never before appeared in print. The stories include: The Three Strangers; A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four; The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion; The Withered Arm; Fellow-Townsmen; Interlopers at the Knap; The Distracted Preacher
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First Sentence
AMONG the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries may be reckoned the long, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are called according to their kind, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
AMONG the few features of agricultural England which retain an appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries may be reckoned the long, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as they are called according to their kind, that fill a large area of certain counties in the south and south-west. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This collection of short stories is by no means Hardy's best work, but it is nonetheless a worthwhile read. I won't review each an every story here, but I will bring your attention to what I believe are the two best. They are The Three Strangers and The Distracted Preacher, which bookend the collection of tales.
The Three Strangers is an oddly comic tale, quite uncharacteristic from some of Hardy's more fatalistic tragedies. It is a well-constructed tale regarding the activities of the local hangman, although the 'twist' is rather obvious. But that does not diminish from my enjoyment of the story.
The Distracted Preacher is far and away the best story of the lot. It is very much in the mould of Hardy's more famous novels, where love is thwarted by circumstances and by social and moral standards that must be seen to be maintained. The setting is reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn, though it has to be noted that Hardy's tale was written several decades earlier, raising the interesting question as to whether or not Jamaica Inn was influenced by The Distracted Preacher.
The rest of the stories are OK, but to me, they didn't really stand out and I was left with a feeling of just plain indifference towards them. They weren't especially bad, but they weren't especially good either; certainly not compared to the two highlighted tales here or to Hardy's more famous novels.
In conclusion, I would recommend this, though not as a book to read cover to cover. Rather, it is better to take each story individually and not start one as soon as you have finished another.
The Three Strangers is an oddly comic tale, quite uncharacteristic from some of Hardy's more fatalistic tragedies. It is a well-constructed tale regarding the activities of the local hangman, although the 'twist' is rather obvious. But that does not diminish from my enjoyment of the story.
The Distracted Preacher is far and away the best story of the lot. It is very much in the mould of Hardy's more famous novels, where love is thwarted by circumstances and by social and moral standards that must be seen to be maintained. The setting is reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn, though it has to be noted that Hardy's tale was written several decades earlier, raising the interesting question as to whether or not Jamaica Inn was influenced by The Distracted Preacher.
The rest of the stories are OK, but to me, they didn't really stand out and I was left with a feeling of just plain indifference towards them. They weren't especially bad, but they weren't especially good either; certainly not compared to the two highlighted tales here or to Hardy's more famous novels.
In conclusion, I would recommend this, though not as a book to read cover to cover. Rather, it is better to take each story individually and not start one as soon as you have finished another.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A must for all those who like the full length novels of Thomas Hardy. He introduces some very quirky characters and situations not usually found in the more well-known of his novels. Short stories are not as well read as they were about thirty years ago, but these are well worth reading.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Professor Michael Irwin, plodding through his obligatory academia-sheen intro to this edition, tells us that many Hardy novels can be identified from their first line alone. So it's gurt lush like that five out of the seven short stories here start with some reference to agricultural England, the south-west, meadows, ewes, cows, dairies, milkers, and a town (of the singular and non-bustling variety). Which is fair enough really, as Hardy's animus was his personal vision of the region he grew up and spent most of his life in; his Wessex, a Dorset of the past, worn away by the same inevitable forces of fate and time he sets up against all his most memorable characters.
In his General Preface to the Novels and Poems, Hardy described how one of his aims as a novelist was to "to preserve for my own satisfaction a fairly true record of a vanishing life", and his method seems surprisingly modern. In all the Wessex Tales he stresses his separation from the narrative by presenting it as a piece of local myth, a story passed on through the generations. All the tales are brought up from the past, "fifty years ago a lonely cottage stood...", adding to the dreamlike quality of Wessex, a place that never really exists but in the imagination of Hardy himself, but which you half expect to see popping out of local archives and museum daguerreotypes.
Some of the stories are linked directly to historic events of the early to mid 1800's; like the stationing of the King's guard's at Lyme Regis, and Napoleon's possible reconnoitring of the south coast. Some stories are pure drama, or even horror; The Withered Arm has a healthy macabre edge to it. The two major stories, novellas almost, Fellow-Townsmen and Interlopers at the Knap, are brilliant examples of Hardy's depiction of people at the whim of not only their own ineluctable fate, but also their own failures of character. People who fail to make that stand for their own, and because the blank universe itself will not intercede, fail to take what was there for them all along.
The Wessex Tales are a great introduction to Hardy's general themes, his naturalistic approach, and his questioning of late Victorian social morality. You can read any of them in a sitting and none of them disappoint. Can't ask for more than that.... except for maybe a happy ending here or there.
In his General Preface to the Novels and Poems, Hardy described how one of his aims as a novelist was to "to preserve for my own satisfaction a fairly true record of a vanishing life", and his method seems surprisingly modern. In all the Wessex Tales he stresses his separation from the narrative by presenting it as a piece of local myth, a story passed on through the generations. All the tales are brought up from the past, "fifty years ago a lonely cottage stood...", adding to the dreamlike quality of Wessex, a place that never really exists but in the imagination of Hardy himself, but which you half expect to see popping out of local archives and museum daguerreotypes.
Some of the stories are linked directly to historic events of the early to mid 1800's; like the stationing of the King's guard's at Lyme Regis, and Napoleon's possible reconnoitring of the south coast. Some stories are pure drama, or even horror; The Withered Arm has a healthy macabre edge to it. The two major stories, novellas almost, Fellow-Townsmen and Interlopers at the Knap, are brilliant examples of Hardy's depiction of people at the whim of not only their own ineluctable fate, but also their own failures of character. People who fail to make that stand for their own, and because the blank universe itself will not intercede, fail to take what was there for them all along.
The Wessex Tales are a great introduction to Hardy's general themes, his naturalistic approach, and his questioning of late Victorian social morality. You can read any of them in a sitting and none of them disappoint. Can't ask for more than that.... except for maybe a happy ending here or there.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Tales from the south
The great Thomas Hardy: novelist, poet; but could he write short stories?
Wessex Tales was published in 1888, after The Woodlanders, and before Tess of the... Read more
Wessex Tales was published in 1888, after The Woodlanders, and before Tess of the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by The Big Pink One
Essential Reading.
Wordsworth Classics are excellent value. "Wessex tales" is well worth more than the book price for "The Withered Arm" alone - a wonderfully atmospheric piece that maintains its... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Bluecashmere.
The Wessex Tales is Hardy's mirror to England in his time.
A common theme amongst Hardy's novels is the difficulty of honest, equal relationships between men and women and this theme is continued throughout The Withered Arm, The Son's... Read more
Published on 5 Nov 2000
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