The Novel and Hardy's Wessex
- Hardy first employed the term "Wessex" in Far from the Madding Crowd to describe the "partly real, partly dream-country" that unifies his novels of Southwest England. He found the word in the pages of early English history as a designation for an extinct, pre-Norman Conquest kingdom. In the first edition, the word "Wessex" is used only once, in chapter 50; Hardy extended the reference for the 1895 edition.
- The village of Puddletown, near Dorchester, is the inspiration for the novel's Weatherbury. Dorchester, in turn, inspired Hardy's Casterbridge.
- In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy briefly mentions two characters from Far from the Madding Crowd– Farmer Everdene and Farmer Boldwood, both in happier days.
Read more about this topic: Far From The Madding Crowd
Famous quotes containing the words the novel and/or hardy:
“The novel is the highest form of human expression so far attained. Why? Because it is so incapable of the absolute.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)