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  3. The Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), the Victorian novelist, poet and short-story author, wrote of the struggles and unhappiness caused by the constraints of social convention, particularly in relation to religion, class, education, gender and marriage. Yet the poetic intensity of Hardy's descriptions of the natural and human environment mitigated his often bleak vision, and contributed significantly to the richness of his writing. The Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy is the first comprehensive edition, providing authoritative texts; full scholarly apparatus that allows the reader to trace Hardy's creative process; introductory essays discussing each work's composition, publication, and critical reception; and in-depth explanatory notes. The edition will be an essential resource for all those studying Hardy's work at the graduate and scholarly level.

  • General Editors: Richard Nemesvari, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario

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7 results in The Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy

Far from the Madding Crowd
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Edited by Simon Gatrell
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    June 2025
    Print publication:
    30 June 2025
  • For the first time since its publication in 1874, this volume presents the text and illustrations of the first edition of Far from the Madding Crowd, a definitive work of nineteenth-century literature and the novel that made Thomas Hardy famous. It includes in footnotes all the revisions that Hardy made to the work, both in manuscript and serial, before 1874 and in numerous subsequent editions. A carefully-researched, accessibly-written introduction examines in detail the successive stages in Hardy's initial inscription and subsequent adjustments to the work from 1873 to the 1920s, and includes analysis of contemporary reviews, as well as a previously unpublished account of the relationship between the novel and George Eliot's Middlemarch. Appendices include discarded manuscript fragments, a discussion of the environments of the novel and consideration of the work of the compositors who first set the novel in type.

Wessex Tales
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Edited by N. H. Reeve, Richard Nemesvari
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2025
    Print publication:
    31 January 2025
  • Hardy's first collection of short stories, Wessex Tales contains some of his most famous narratives. 'The Three Strangers' is often described as the quintessential example of his short fiction, while 'The Withered Arm,' with its suggestion of supernatural influences and its shocking conclusion, has thrilled readers for over a century. Tales such as 'Fellow-Townsmen' and 'Intruders at the Knap' showcase Hardy's typically ironic approach to the relationship between the sexes, and 'The Distracted Preacher' shows his undervalued comic touch. The re-introduction of 'An Imaginative Woman' into the collection, which Hardy at one point inserted and then subsequently removed, restores the volume to his original intention. This edition provides an authoritative text and full scholarly apparatus, allowing the reader to trace Hardy's creative process for each of the stories. It also includes an introductory essay discussing the work's composition, publication and critical reception, and comprehensive explanatory notes.

Life's Little Ironies
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Edited by Alan Manford
  • Published online:
    05 October 2023
    Print publication:
    19 October 2023
  • Life's Little Ironies (a phrase coined by Hardy) was Thomas Hardy's third collection of short stories. The volume's eight stories and one sequence of shorter tales (presented in a Canterbury Tales-type framework) had all appeared first in magazines before being gathered together in 1894. Not only do they reflect the strengths and themes of his great novels – they are also themselves powerful works, encompassing tragedy and humour. Part of the Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Short Stories of Thomas Hardy, this volume presents an authoritative text which aims to reflect Hardy's original artistic intentions. A full scholarly apparatus includes every authorial revision, from manuscript (where extant) onwards, enabling readers to trace Hardy's creative process. An introductory essay gives details of the stories' composition, publishing history and critical reception; there are comprehensive explanatory notes and a glossary, and the illustrations that accompanied the stories' magazine publication also provide valuable context.

Desperate Remedies
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Edited by Richard Nemesvari
  • Published online:
    05 March 2021
    Print publication:
    15 August 2019
  • Hardy's first published novel, Desperate Remedies (1871), a piece of sensation fiction that encompasses illegitimacy, murder, blackmail, impersonation, and bigamy, was originally published anonymously. Written while, in Hardy's own words, he was 'feeling his way to a method', it nonetheless contains early examples of the kinds of extreme situations and emotions that continued to play a significant role in his later plots. As part of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy, this edition of the novel provides an authoritative text; full scholarly apparatus that allows the reader to trace Hardy's creative process; an introductory essay discussing the work's composition, publication, and critical reception; and comprehensive explanatory notes.

The Woodlanders
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Edited by Alan Manford
  • Published online:
    05 March 2021
    Print publication:
    15 August 2019
  • The Woodlanders (1887) was Thomas Hardy's elventh published novel and the one he claimed to like 'as a story, the best of all'. It is a story of wide appeal, having much to say on themes such as marriage and social class, and with a background revealing its author's profound knowledge and appreciation of many matters, particularly nature and country life. As part of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy, this edition of the novel provides an authoritative and accurate text which aims to reflect Hardy's original artistic intention and represent the novel as it would have been read by his Victorian readers. The novel is supported by a comprehensive introduction, chronology and accompanying textual apparatus which allows the modern reader to trace the novel's evolution from composition to first publication and through several stages of revision in succeeding editions in the quarter of a century following its first publication.

Under the Greenwood Tree
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Edited by Simon Gatrell
  • Published online:
    05 March 2021
    Print publication:
    15 August 2019
  • Hardy's second published novel, Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), the first of his great series of Wessex novels, was originally published anonymously. As part of the Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy, this edition of the novel provides readers with an authoritative and accurate text of the novel; moreover it gives access to every revision that Hardy made, and to notations of all the errors introduced by printers' compositors. The annotated text is surrounded by an introduction that gives a very full account of the genesis, the writing and the publishing history of the novel. A range of appendices and comprehensive explanatory notes explore significant aspects of the composition, production and marketing of the novel, touched on in the introduction, to provide a full understanding of the nature and life of this classic work.

The Return of the Native
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Edited by Tim Dolin
  • Published online:
    05 March 2021
    Print publication:
    25 February 2021
  • This is the first complete scholarly edition of one of Hardy's greatest novels. The Return of the Native engages ambitiously with contemporary ideas and problems of existence, and would go on to become one of the major 'Wessex novels'. When composed in 1878, however, Hardy's Wessex did not yet exist, and this edition, which is based on meticulous analysis of Hardy's holograph manuscript and every significant print edition of the novel to appear in his lifetime, situates The Return of the Native within the historical context of its first publication, encouraging readers to trace its evolution over the following four decades. Tim Dolin provides a wealth of supporting materials, including an original, authoritative text, comprehensive annotation, commentary and glossary, and illustrated appendices of both Arthur Hopkins's illustrations and the topography of Egdon Heath, thus creating an invaluable tool for students and scholars of Hardy and nineteenth-century literature alike.