Brief Description
Wessex Tales was the first collection of Hardy's short stories, and they reflect the experience of a novelist at the height of his powers.
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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 Hardy's 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 Hardy's story-telling gifts.