Hardy's Wessex has been much written about, but all these guidebooks and academic studies are based on Wessex as it stood when Hardy, at the age of 72, had completed his transformation of the place. When he began writing in the 1860s, Wessex wasn't even a gleam in his eye. This book traces each step in the evolution of his vision of Wessex in his novels, stories and poems, and suggests how, at several key moments in his career, Wessex might have taken a different direction. There are also within a number of maps, and reproductions of significant illustrations. During his lifetime Hardy made numerous and radical changes to aspects of Wessex, and in order to present a complete record of them for this first time, there is an associated website, the design of which is integrated with the book.
'...brings Gatrell's formidable knowledge of Hardy's textual history to bear on the region's imaginative evolution.' - Bharat Tandon, Times Literary Supplement
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
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.
Description
Hardy's Wessex has been much written about, but all these guidebooks and academic studies are based on Wessex as it stood when Hardy, at the age of 72, had completed his transformation of the place. When he began writing in the 1860s, Wessex wasn't even a gleam in his eye. This book traces each step in the evolution of his vision of Wessex in his novels, stories and poems, and suggests how, at several key moments in his career, Wessex might have taken a different direction. There are also within a number of maps, and reproductions of significant illustrations. During his lifetime Hardy made numerous and radical changes to aspects of Wessex, and in order to present a complete record of them for this first time, there is an associated website, the design of which is integrated with the book.
Reviews
'...brings Gatrell's formidable knowledge of Hardy's textual history to bear on the region's imaginative evolution.' - Bharat Tandon, Times Literary Supplement
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
Authors
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.
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