"It was in the chapters of Far from the Madding Crowd ...that I first ventured to adopt the word ’Wessex,’" wrote Thomas Hardy and so described the birth of that fictional region in the southwest of England where the hauntingly familiar names--Egdon Heath, Christminster, Casferbridge--have come to evoke the melancholy grandeur of Hardy’s world. The rural sheep-raising country of this early novel escapes the gloom that permeates the landscape and the characters of such later tragedies as Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbervilles.But the relentless accidents of an indifferent nature,combined with the ill-fated passions of beautiful Bathsheba Everdene and her lovers, create the thwarted purposes and shattering griefs that make this a characteristicallv Powerful Hardv novel.

IN reprinting this story for a new edition I am reminded that it was in the chapters of "Far from the Madding Crowd," as they appeared month by month in a popular magazine, that I first ventured to adopt the word "Wessex" from the pages of early English history, and give it a fictitious signifieance as the existing name of the district once included in that extinct kingdom. The series of novels I projected being mainly of the kind called local, they seemed to require a territorial definition of some sort to lend unity to their scene. Finding that the area of a single county did not afford a canvas largo enough for this purpose, and that there were objections to an invented name, I disinterred the old one. The region designated was known but vaguely, and I was often asked even by educated people where it lay. However, the press and the public were kind enough to welcome the fanciful plan, and willingly joined me in the anachronism of imagining a Wessex population living under Queen Victoria;-a modern Wessex of railways, the penny post, mowing and reaping machines, union workhouses, lucifer matches, labourers who could read and write, and National sebool children. But I believe I am correct in stating that, until the existence of this contemporaneous Wessex in place of the usual counties was announced in the present story, in 1874, it had never been heard of in fiction and current speech, if at all, and that the expression, "a Wessex peasant," or "a Wessex custom," would theretofore have been taken to refer to nothing later in date than the Norman Conquest.

Preface

DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK—AN INCIDENT

NIGHT—THE FLOCK—AN |NTERIOR—ANOTHER INTERIOR

A GIRL ON HORSEBACK-ONVERSATION

GABRIEL’S RESOLVE—THE VISIT THE MISTAKE

DEPARTURE OF BATHSHEBA—A PASTORAL TRAGEDY

THE FAIR—THE JOURNEY—THE FIRE

RECOGN1TION—A TIMID GIRL

THE MALTHOUSE—THE CHAT—NEWS

THE HOMESTEAD—A VISITOR—HALF-CONFIDENCES

MISTRESS AND MEN

OUTSIDE THE BARRACKS—SNow—A MEETING

FARMERS—A RULE—AN EXCEPTION

SORTES SANCTORUM—THE VALENTINE

EFFECT OF THE LETTER—SUNRISE

A MORNING MEETING—THE LETTER AGAIN

ALL SAINTS ’AND ALL SOULS’

IN THE MARKET-PLACE

BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION—REGRET

THE SHEEP-WASHING—THE OFFER

PERPLEXITY—GRINDING THE SHEARS—A QUARREL

TROUBLES IN THE FOLD——A MESSAGE

THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP-SHEARERS

EVENTIDE—A SECOND DECLARATION

THE SAME NIGHT—THE FIR PLANTATION

THENEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED

SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD

HIVING THE BEES

THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS

PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK

HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES

BLAME—FURY

NIGHT—HORSES TRAMPING

IN THE SuN—A HARBINGER

HOME AGAIN—A TRICKSTER

AT AN UPPER WINDOW

WEALTH IN JEOPARDY—THE REVEL

THE STORM—THE Two TOGETHER

RAIN——-ONE SOLITARY MEETS ANOTHER

COMING HOME—A CRY

ON CASTERBRIDGE HIGHWAY

SUSPICION—FANNY IS SENT FOR

JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN—BUCK’S HEAD

FANNY’S REVENGE

UNDER A TREE—REACTION

TROY’S ROMANTICISM

THE GURGOYLE: ITS DOINGS

ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE

DOUBTS ARISE—DOUBTS LINGER

OAK’S ADVANCEMENT—A GREAT HOPE

THE SHEEP FAIR—TROY TOUCHES HIS WIFE’S HAND

BATHSHEBA TALKS WITH HER OUTRIDER

CONVERGING COURSES

CONCURRITUR—HOR/E MOMENTO

AFTER THE SHOCK

THE MARCH FOLLOWING—‘BATHSHEBA BOLDWOOD’

BEACTY IN LONELINESS—AFTER ALL

A FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNINCr—CONCLUSION