Library
Search
The Return of the Nativeis a sensational novel written by the English NovelistThomas Hardy, who is remembered for his multitude of literary works in the form of novels, short stories, poems, and plays.
Out of his numerous writings, notable are The Poor Man and the Lady, The Woodlanders, The Mayor of Casterbridge, A Pair of Blue Eyes, and The Hand of Ethelberta.
This novel is based on controversial themes of illicit sexual relationships, immoral desires, sexual politics, and conflicting demands of the society. While the lead female character itself is painted as flawed person who openly accepts extramarital affairs as part of normal life. The story is set on Egdon Heath, where the protagonist returns to lead a simple life in his native, after quitting his rewarding career in business in Paris.
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
by Thomas Hardy
PREFACE
The date at which the following events are assumed to have occurred may be set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering place herein called “Budmouth” still retained sufficient afterglow from its Georgian gaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to the romantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.
Under the general name of “Egdon Heath,” which has been given to the sombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of various real names, to the number of at least a dozen; these being virtually one in character and aspect, though their original unity, or partial unity, is now somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices brought under the plough with varying degrees of success, or planted to woodland.
It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose southwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of that traditionary King of Wessex—Lear.
July, 1895.
“To sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind.
I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.”
BOOK ONE — THE THREE WOMEN
A few days later, before the month of August has expired, Eustacia and Yeobright sat together at their early dinner. Eustacia's manner had become of late almost apathetic. There was a forlorn lo…
Those words of Thomasin, which seemed so little, but meant so much, remained in the ears of Diggory Venn: “Help me to keep him home in the evenings.” On this occasion Venn had arrived on Egdon Heath …
Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of days during which snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts were treats; when cracks appeared in clayey gardens, and were called “e…
Wildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit Eustacia boldly, by day, and on the easy terms of a relation, since the reddleman had spied out and spoilt his walks to her by night. The spell tha…
He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked around. Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she held a book in her hand she had not looked into it for some ti…
In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth, had become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The consequences which might result from Clym's discovery that his …
One evening, about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Yeobright, when the silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly upon the floor of Clym's house at Alderworth, a woman came for…
Clym's grief became mitigated by wearing itself out. His strength returned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been seen walking about the garden. Endurance and despair, equani…
A consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay around him took possession even of Yeobright in his wild walk towards Alderworth. He had once before felt in his own person this overpowering of …
Eustacia's journey was at first as vague in direction as that of thistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it had been night instead of morning, that she might at least hav…
Double Crossedbrings readers into a tense world of intrigue and shifting loyalt…
Read more
Mardi, and a Voyage Thitheris the third book by American writerHerman Melville,…
Read more
The North Shore Mysterydraws readers into a quiet coastal community where uneas…
Read more
