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/ \
/ WESSEX \
/ ~~~~~ \
/ \_ _/ \
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| | -o- | | "I am the family face;
| \ / \ / | flesh perishes, I live on"
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
"~~~~~~~~~"
THOMAS HARDY
1840-1928
The Wessex
A Tribute to Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
The Wessex Novels
Hardy published fourteen novels between 1871 and 1895. After the controversy surrounding Jude the Obscure, he turned exclusively to poetry. These ten represent the heart of his achievement.
Far from the Madding Crowd
1874
Central figure: Bathsheba Everdene
A spirited young woman inherits a farm and must navigate the attentions of three very different suitors while learning to manage her estate and her heart.
The novel that introduced Wessex to the world and made Hardy famous at thirty-four.
The Return of the Native
1878
Central figure: Clym Yeobright
On the wild Egdon Heath, a native son returns from Paris seeking meaning while passion and tragedy interweave among the heath-dwellers.
A dark meditation on landscape, destiny, and the impossibility of escape.
The Mayor of Casterbridge
1886
Central figure: Michael Henchard
A man sells his wife and daughter at a fair while drunk, then rises to become mayor, only to face the consequences of his past.
Hardy's study of character as fate, of how we destroy ourselves.
The Woodlanders
1887
Central figure: Grace Melbury
In the apple orchards and timber plots of Little Hintock, class and love collide in an intricate web of mismatched marriages.
A quieter tragedy of compromised lives and unrealized potential.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
1891
Central figure: Tess Durbeyfield
A pure woman faithfully presented—Tess's journey through suffering, betrayal, and the injustice of Victorian moral codes.
Perhaps Hardy's most devastating critique of society's cruelty to women.
Jude the Obscure
1895
Central figure: Jude Fawley
A stoneworker dreams of Oxford while his life is shaped by failed relationships and society's barriers to education and love.
Hardy's final novel, so controversial he vowed never to write fiction again.
A Pair of Blue Eyes
1873
Central figure: Elfride Swancourt
On the Cornish cliffs, a rector's daughter is caught between two suitors—one intellectual, one passionate.
An early work containing the famous cliff-hanging scene, literally.
Under the Greenwood Tree
1872
Central figure: Fancy Day
A pastoral comedy of a village choir facing obsolescence and a young romance among the rural musicians.
Hardy's gentlest work, touched with nostalgia for a vanishing world.
Two on a Tower
1882
Central figure: Swithin St Cleeve
An astronomer and a lady find love in a tower observatory, their passion framed against the vast indifference of the universe.
A romance measured against the scale of infinity.
The Trumpet-Major
1880
Central figure: Anne Garland
During the Napoleonic wars, a young woman must choose between two brothers—one a trumpet-major, one a sailor.
Hardy's most purely historical novel, steeped in the fear of invasion.
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The Wessex Edition
In 1895-96, Hardy revised all his novels for Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., dividing them into three classes:
- Novels of Character and Environment: The major works, including Tess, Jude, Mayor, Return, Woodlanders, Far from the Madding Crowd
- Romances and Fantasies: Including A Pair of Blue Eyes, Two on a Tower
- Novels of Ingenuity: Plotting over character—including Desperate Remedies, The Hand of Ethelberta