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Description: This Second Edition of Thomas Hardy’s 1886 novel is again based on the Wessex Edition of 1912, which was revised and corrected by the author. It has been collated with the Mellstock Edition of 1920, for which Hardy submitted final corrections.
"Backgrounds and Contexts" provides invaluable source material on Victorian Dorset and, in particular, Dorchester, Hardy’s native home and the town upon which Casterbridge is based. Included are six of Hardy’s nonfiction writings, notably excerpts from his essay "The Dorsetshire Labourer" (1883), in which he frankly comments on the social changes he has witnessed in the county Hardy’s Wessex is further illuminated in an essay by Michael Millgate and by maps of Casterbridge and Wessex and a key to local place names. Christine Winfield discusses the novel’s manuscript and its complicated history
"Criticism" collects seventeen wide-ranging assessments of the novel. The contemporary reviews are from The Athenaeum, George Saintsbury, Richard Holt Hutton, and William Dean Howells. Modem criticism includes interpretations—six of them new to the Second Edition—by Virginia Woolf, AlbertJ. Guerard, Julian Moynahan, John Paterson, Michael Millgate, Irving Howe, J. Hillis Miller, Ian Gregor, Elaine Showalter, George Levine, William Greenslade, H.M. Daleski, and Suzanne Keen.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
Contents: The Text of The Mayor of Casterbridge • Preface • The Mayor of Casterbridge • Backgrounds and Contexts • COMPOSITION • Christine Winfield • The Manuscript of Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge • HARDY’S NONFICTIONAL WRITINGS • From The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy • [Dialect in the Novel] • From The Dorsetshire Labourer • From The Profitable Reading of Fiction • From Candour in English Fiction • From General Preface to the Novels and Poems • HARDY’S WESSEX • Map of the Wessex of the Novels and Poems • Map of Casterbridge and Durnover (circa 1848) • Place-Names in The Mayor of Casterbridge • A Note on the Corn Laws • Michael Millgate • The Evolution of Wessex • Criticism • CONTEMPORARY RECEPTION • From The Athenaeum • [George Saintsbury] From The Saturday Review • [Richard Holt Hutton] From The Spectator • [William Dean Howells] From Harper’s New Monthly Magazine • MODERN CRITICISM • Virginia Woolf • [Hardy’s Impression of Life] • Albert J. Guerard • [Henchard’s Self-Condemnation] • Julian Moynahan The Mayor of Casterbridge and the Old Testament’s First Book of Samuel • John Paterson • The Mayor of Casterbridge as Tragedy • Michael Miligate • [The Role of Elizabeth-Jane] • Irving Howe • The Struggles of Men • J. Hillis Miller • [A Nightmare of Frustrated Desire] • Ian Gregor • A Man and His Histoty • Elaine Showalter • The Unmanning of the Mayor of Casterbridge • George Levine • [Reversing the Real] • William Greenslade • Degenerate Spaces • H. M. Daleski • [The Paradoxes of Love] • Suzanne Keen • [Narrative Annexes: Mixen Lane] • Thomas Hardy: A Chronology • Selected BibliographyISBN - 9780393974980
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Pages : 480
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