Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy

In Wessex Tales, his first collection of short stories, Hardy sought to record the legends, superstitions, local customs and lore of a Wessex that was rapidly passing out of memory. But these Tales also portray the social and economic stresses of Dorset in the 1880s, and reveal Hardys growing scepticism about the possiblity of achieving personal and sexual satisfactio In Wessex Tales, his first collection of short stories, Hardy sought to record the legends, superstitions, local customs and lore of a Wessex that was rapidly passing out of memory. But these Tales also portray the social and economic stresses of Dorset in the 1880s, and reveal Hardys growing scepticism about the possiblity of achieving personal and sexual satisfaction in the modern world. By turns humorous, ironic, macabre, and elegiac, these seven stories show the range of Hardys story-telling gifts.