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