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The first complete scholarly edition of Hardy's novel, with authoritative text, full apparatus, and rich explanatory materials.
List of contents
List of Illustrations; General Editor's Preface; Acknowledgements; Chronology; Abbreviations of Texts of The Return of the Native; Introduction; The Return of the Native; Apparatus; Variations in Punctuation and Styling; End-of-Line Word Division; Editorial Emendations; Appendices: Appendix 1. Hardy's Preface to the Novel; Appendix 2. Description of the Manuscript; Appendix 3. Description of Substantive Editions; Appendix 4. Dialect Glossary and Table of Changes to Standard and Non-standard Speech; Appendix 5. A Note on Hardy's Note to VI.iii; Appendix 6. Egdon Heath and the Dorset Heathlands; Appendix 7. Illustrations to the Belgravia Serial Edition; Notes; Works Cited in the Notes; Textual Notes; Explanatory Notes.
About the author
Tim Dolin is Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University. As well as having written numerous essays, chapters and books on nineteenth-century fiction, he has edited novels by Hardy, Charlotte Brontë, and Gaskell, and is currently editing Hardy's The Well-Beloved (Cambridge). He is General Editor (with Christine Alexander) of the Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Poems of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.
Summary
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.
