Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy First published serially between January and December of 1878 in the sensationalistic monthly London magazine "Belgravia", Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native" is the author's sixth published novel. Set in Egdon Heath, an area of Thomas Hardy's fictionalized Wessex known for the thorny evergreen shrubs, called furze or gorse, which are cut there by its residents for fuel. When the story begins, on Guy Fawkes Night, we find Diggory Venn, a merchant of the red mineral called reddle ...
Read More
Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy First published serially between January and December of 1878 in the sensationalistic monthly London magazine "Belgravia", Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native" is the author's sixth published novel. Set in Egdon Heath, an area of Thomas Hardy's fictionalized Wessex known for the thorny evergreen shrubs, called furze or gorse, which are cut there by its residents for fuel. When the story begins, on Guy Fawkes Night, we find Diggory Venn, a merchant of the red mineral called reddle which farmers use to mark their sheep, giving aid to Thomasin Yeobright, whom he is in love with but has unsuccessfully wooed over the preceding two years. Diggory is helping Thomasin, who is in distress having left town with Damon Wildeve under the false promise of matrimony, return home to her aunt, Mrs. Yeobright. Damon has rebuffed Thomasin in favor of the beautiful young Eustacia Vye. However when Mrs. Yeobright's son Clym, a successful diamond merchant, returns from Paris, Eustacia loses interest in Damon, seeing a relationship with Clym as an opportunity to escape the Heath in favor of a more glamorous and exciting locale. A classically modern novel, "The Return of the Native" presents a world of people struggling between their unfulfilled desires and the expectations of society. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and includes an introduction by J. W. Cunliffe. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.
Read Less
Add this copy of Return of the Native to cart. $61.12, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by CreateSpace Independent Publis.
Return of the Native is Hardy at his very best, it is beautifully dark and dangerous, from the start to almost the very end. The characters are sublime yet believable, and the heath (the most important character of them all) positively oozes suspence and unpredictablilty. The turbulate relationships scream out disaster, and fill any reader with a sense of forboding and a desperate wish for a happy ending. However the 'Happy' end is not so comforting when it comes as it seems strangly out of place with the rest of the novel. Overall Return of the native presents a beautiful and lost world from before the wars. well worth a read dispite the lenghty sentences and the vast descriptions that may put some off.
