Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140620559 ISBN 13: 9780140620559

Publisher: Penguin Putnam~mass, 1994

Wild passion leads to tragedy as love is perverted by marriage. But the concerns of mortals are belittled by the sombre, immemorial presence of Egdon Heath in perhaps Hardy's finest evocation of his native landscape. The text is accompanied by a critical introduction.

About the Author:

THOMAS HARDY was born on June 2, 1840. His father was a stonemason. He was brought up near Dorchester and trained as an architect. In 1868 his work took him to St Juliot's church in Cornwall where he met his wife-to-be, Emma. His first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, was rejected by publishers but Desperate Remedies was published in 1871 and this was rapidly followed by Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). He also wrote many other novels, poems and short stories. Tess of the D'Urbervilles was published in 1891. His final novel was Jude the Obscure (1895). Hardy was awarded the Order of Merit in 1920 and the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1912. His wife died in 1912 and he later married his secretary. Thomas Hardy died January 11, 1928.

Review:

"Throbs with a very Victorian sense of geologies, pre-histories and even astronomy; you can feel the planet moving under the feet."
--Daily Telegraph

"Inimitably brooding style."
--The Times

"Besides my complete identification with its heroine, I loved the sheer relentless power of the writing. What other writer would start a novel with six solid pages of description without introducing a single character? Like D H Lawrence, Hardy isn't to everyone's taste: too much blighted love and atheistic pessimism. To me, ensconced in a convent thick with incense, confession and church twice on Sundays, a little atheistic pessimism was a welcome antidote."
--Maeve Haran, Independent