Books - Thomas Hardy Novel(s) - The Return of the Native

TheMovieGrrl · 08-03-2008, 01:45 AM

I don't know if there are many fans of Hardy's works. Here are some of the other pieces he's done:

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

Quote:

Prose

Hardy divided his novels and collected short stories into three classes:

Novels of Character and Environment

* The Poor Man and the Lady (1867, unpublished and lost)
* Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)
* Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
* The Return of the Native (1878)
* The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
* The Woodlanders (1887)
* Wessex Tales (1888, a collection of short stories)
* Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
* Life's Little Ironies (1894, a collection of short stories)
* Jude the Obscure (1895)

Romances and Fantasies

* A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
* The Trumpet-Major (1880)
* Two on a Tower (1882)
* A Group of Noble Dames (1891, a collection of short stories)
* The Well-Beloved (1897) (first published as a serial from 1892).

Novels of Ingenuity

* Desperate Remedies (1871)
* The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)
* A Laodicean (1881)

Hardy also produced a number of minor tales and a collaborative novel, The Spectre of the Real (1894). An additional short-story collection, beyond the ones mentioned above, is A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913). His works have been collected as the 24-volume Wessex Edition (1912-1913) and the 37-volume Mellstock Edition (1919-1920). His largely self-written biography appears under his second wife's name in two volumes from 1928-1930, as The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891 and The Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892-1928, now published in a critical one-volume edition as The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, edited by Michael Millgate (1984).

Poetry (not a comprehensive list)

* The Photograph (1890)
* Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898)
* Poems of the Past and Present (1901)
* The Dynasts, Part 1 (1904)
* The Dynasts, Part 2 (1906)
* The Dynasts, Part 3 (1908)
* Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses (1909)
* Satires of Circumstance (1914)
* Moments of Vision (1917)
* Collected Poems (1919, part of the Mellstock Edition of his novels and poems)
* Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses (1922)
* Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)
* Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928, published posthumously)

Drama

* The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall (1923)

I'll admit I first became intrigued when I saw the then unknown Catherine Zeta Jones in The Return of the Native.

Note: check out her castmates! Clive Owen as Damon Wildeve, Ray Stevenson as Clym Yeobright.

The movie impressed me so much I bought the book. I'll admit, i was surprised how much the book was similar to the movie...better in fact - no surprise there!

I really have to say it's one of my top 5 books of all time because it works on a hook we could relate to: being stuck in a small town, waiting for your way out.

Eustasia Vye is such a great character to illustrate how a person can outgrow their environment. Something about her personality just felt like she belonged in the city.

This extended to my own feelings - at that time - of wanting to get out my small town and see the world.

It's a tragic yet poignant novel which demonstrates clearly why it's a classic.

Just for a bit of a fresh sample I thought I'd post one of the many great descriptive passages about the "Heath", the area where the story takes place. It's brooding, ominous and haunting.

Quote:

The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with
the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly
marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment
of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was
come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood
distinct in the sky.