Cambridge Editions present the works and correspondence of great thinkers and writers. Introductions, explanatory notes and textual apparatus accompany a reliable version of the text, aiding scholars and students alike.
Cambridge Editions present the works and correspondence of great thinkers and writers. Introductions, explanatory notes and textual apparatus accompany a reliable version of the text, aiding scholars and students alike.
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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 (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.
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.
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.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is renowned as the first professional woman of literature and drama in English. Her career in the Restoration theatre extended over two decades, encompassing remarkable generic range and diversity. Her last five plays, written and performed between 1682 and 1696, include city comedies (The City-Heiress, The Luckey Chance), a farce (The Emperor of the Moon), a tragicomedy (The Widdow Ranter), and a comedy of family inheritance (The Younger Brother). These plays exemplify Behn's skills in writing for individual performers, and exhibit the topical political engagement for which she is renowned. They witness to Behn's popularity with theatre audiences during the politically and financially difficult years of the 1680s and even after her death. Informed by the most up-to-date research in computational attribution, this fully annotated edition draws on recent scholarship to provide a comprehensive guide to Behn's work, and the literary, theatrical and political history of the Restoration.