This Second Edition reprints the text of the authoritative 1912 Macmillan Wessex Edition. It is accompanied by more than 500 editorial footnotes, many new to this edition, that provide essential historical background and glossing of dialect words. Also new to the Second Edition are the twelve illustrations from the novel’s first serial publication and Hardy’s "Sketch Map of the Scene of the Story," which accompanied the 1878 edition. Again included is the "Map of Wessex of the Novels and Poems" from the 1912 Macmillan Wessex Edition of The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Preface to the Second Edition

A Note on the Text

The Text of The Return of the Native

Sketch map of the Scene of the Story

Preface

The Return of the Native

Backgrounds and Contexts

　　Map of the Wessex of the Novels and Poems

　　Glossary of Dialect Words

　COMPOSITION

　　Simon Gatrell·The Textual History of The Return of the Native

　　Andrew Nash·The Return of the Native and Belgravia

　　The Serialization of The Return of the Native

　　Hardy’s 1912 Note to Book IV, Chapter III

　HARDY’S NONFICTIONAL WRITINGS

　　From Hardy’s Letters

　　From The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy

　　Two Letters on Dialect in the Novel

　　From The Profitable Reading of Fiction

　　From General Preface to the Novels and Poems

Criticism

　CONTEMPORARY RECEPTION

　　From The Athenaeum

　　W. E. Henley·From The Academy

　　From The Saturday Review

　　R. H. Hutton·From The Spectator

　　From Harper’s New Monthly Magazine

　MODERN CRITICISM

　　D. H. Lawrence·From Study of Thomas Hardy

　　Donald Davidson·The Traditional Basis of Thomas Hardy’s Fiction

　　John Paterson·The Return of the Native as Antichristian Document

　　Richard Swigg·Thomas Hardy and the Problem of the "Middle Distance"

　　Michael Wheeler·Hardy’s Use of Allusion

　　Rosemarie Morgan·Conflicting Courses in The Return of the Native

　　Pamela Dalziel·Anxieties of the Representation: The Serial Illustrations to The Return of the Native

　　Gillian Beer·Can the Native Return?

　　Jennifer Gribble·The Quiet Woman of Egdon Heath

Thomas Hardy: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography