(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

The Return of the Native is dominated by the brooding presence of Egdon Heath, located in Thomas Hardy's imaginary Wessex, and in no other book did Hardy's extraordinary feeling for landscape blend so perfectly with his austere, stoic vision of human fate. Once more he treats his favorite theme of the mismatched couple with masterly pathos and understatement. Eustacia Vye longs to escape from Egdon Heath, but the man she chooses to save her longs to stay. Out of their struggle, the unfulfilled passion of his heroine, and the daily rhythms of late-nineteenth-century rural life, Hardy builds a drama fully worthy of the magnificent stage on which he places it.

Violated by one man, forsaken by another, Tess Durbeyfield is the magnificent and spirited heroine of Thomas Hardy's immortal work. Of all the great English novelists, no one writes more eloquently of tragic destiny than Hardy. With the innocent and powerless victim Tess, he creates profound sympathy for human frailty while passionately indicting the injustices of Victorian society. Scorned by outraged readers upon its publication in 1891, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is today one of the enduring classics of nineteenth-century literature.

(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)

Set in the magical Wessex landscape so familiar from Thomas Hardy's early work, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is unique among his great novels for the intense feeling that he lavished upon his heroine, Tess, a pure woman betrayed by love. Hardy poured all of his profound empathy for both humanity and the rhythms of natural life into this story of her beauty, goodness, and tragic fate. In so doing, he created a character who, like Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina, has achieved classic stature.

After an unfortunate marriage to Sergeant Troy and an affair with Farmer Boldwood, Bathsheba Everdene finally becomes the wife of the man who has always loved her.

This fine novel sets in opposition two of Thomas Hardy's most unforgettable creations: his heroine, the sensuous, free-spirited Eustacia Vye, and the solemn, majestic stretch of upland in Dorsetshire he called Egdon Heath. The famous opening reveals the haunting power of that dark, forbidding moor where proud Eustacia fervently awaits a clandestine meeting with her lover, Damon Wildeve. But Eustacia's dreams of escape are not to be realized—neither Wildeve nor the returning native Clym Yeobright can bring her salvation.

Injured by forces beyond their control, Hardy's characters struggle vainly in the net of destiny. In the end, only the face of the lonely heath remains untouched by fate in this masterpiece of tragic passion, a tale that perfectly epitomizes the author's own unique and melancholy genius.

The text is fully annotated and includes a separate table of contents for the novel to assist readers in locating specific episodes or passages.

Hardy's hand-drawn map of Wessex and the manuscript title page for the first edition of his novel are also included.

Hardy and the Novel includes seven poems by Hardy that provide greater insight into his ethos; selections from Michael Millgate's biography of Hardy that depict the relationship between episodes in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and events in the author's life; and excerpts from Grindle and Gatrell's introduction to the 1983 edition that discuss Hardy's revision process in both manuscripts and early printed editions of the novel.

Criticism features three contemporary reviews of the novel not printed in the earlier Norton editions, including the first feminist review of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Also new are 'A Chat with Mr. Hardy,' a hitherto unprinted post-publication interview with the author about his new novel, and five carefully selected critical interpretations.

Essays by Elliot B. Gose, Jr., Peter R. Morton, and Gillian Beer address Hardy's debt to Charles Darwin, perhaps the single most important influence on Hardy's thought and imagination; Raymond Williams's essay presents a Marxist perspective; and Adrian Poole discusses the significance of Hardy's wisdom concerning 'the trouble men's words have with women and the trouble women have with men's words.'

A Chronology, new to this edition, and a Selected Bibliography are included.

E' la storia di Jude Fawley, un ragazzo di campagna che ama studiare e sogna di entrare all'università di Christminster (Oxford), ma non può permettersi neppure di andare a scuola. Dopo un matrimonio fallito a cui era stato costretto con l'inganno, si trasferisce a Christminster. Lavora come scalpellino restaurando le facciate di quegli stessi collegi universitari ai quali gli è negato l'accesso, e conosce la cugina Sue Bridehead, una giovane colta e emancipata di cui s'innamora subito. Sue sposa un anziano maestro di scuola, pur non amandolo, e quando decide di abbandonarlo e di andare a vivere con Jude, lo fa tra dubbi e sensi di colpa. La loro convivenza sarà osteggiata dalla società, che rifiuterà a Jude un lavoro, e non potrà non finire in tragedia.

It also incorporates revisions that Hardy made inhis 'study copy' of the novel and in his marked printer's copy and pageproofs for the Harper and Brothers 'sixpenny edition' of 1901, wheneverthese revisions could be confidently judged to represent Hardy's finaldeliberate intent.

The resulting text includes revisions by Hardy which have neverappeared before in a modern edition.

The novel is fully annotated and is accompanied by Hardy's map ofWessex and a simplified map of the landscape of Far from the MaddingCrowd.

'Textual Notes' include a list of emendations, examples of variantreadings from the manuscript to the Wessex edition, and a discussion ofthe choice of copy text.

The textual history of the novel is traced in extracts from studies byRichard Little Purdy and Simon Gatrell.

'Backgrounds' includes substantial extracts from Hardy's correspondencewith Leslie Stephen and is followed by a selection of contemporaryreviews.

Twentieth-century 'Criticism' is represented by Howard Babb, RoyMorrell, Alan Friedman, J. Hillis Miller, Michael Millgate, PenelopeVigar, Peter J. Casagrande, Ian Gregor, and Albert C. Schweik.