The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy

Notes on contributors; Preface; A chronology of Hardy's life and publications; List of abbreviations and texts; 1. Thomas Hardy: the biographical sources Michael Millgate; 2. Wessex Simon Gatrell; 3. Art and aesthetics Norman Page; 4. The influence of religion, science and philosophy on Hardy's writings Robert Schweik; 5. Hardy and critical theory Peter Widdowson; 6. Thomas Hardy and matters of gender Kristin Brady; 7. Variants on genre: The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Hand of Ethelberta Jakob Lothe; 8. The patriarchy of class: Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Woodlanders Penny Boumelha; 9. The radical aesthetic of Tess of the d'Urbervilles Linda M. Shires; 10. Hardy and readers: Jude the Obscure Dale Kramer; 11. Hardy as a nineteenth-century poet Dennis Taylor; 12. The modernity of Thomas Hardy's poetry John Paul Riquelme; Index.

"Well equipped with notes, suggestions for further reading, and a chronology of Hardy's life and publications, this volume will be a reliable, trusted companion for serious upper-division undergraduate students and scholars and for sophisticated general readers." Choice "The contributors to The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy are among the most seasoned and authoritative in the Hardy canon of criticism. The various experts...remind us to pay attention to artistic intention, to the words on the page, as well as to the contexts - biographical, intellectual, social - that inform the texts of a still provocative writer." English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 "The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy is a useful introduction to Hardy's work. It is remarkably diverse in its subjects, approaches, and methodlogies. As a resource from which almost any reader can extract something useful, The Cambridge Companion works very well...it gains in variety and capacity to reach a very wide range of readers." Victorian Periodicals Review "The essays reflect a variety of critical and theoretical approaches..." Reference & Research Book News "presents essays by thoroughly knowledgeable Hardy scholars, balancing the larger views with the meticulously read details, and demonstrating to newer readers that the study of Thomas Hardy has not by any means been exhausted by these readers whose essays here testify to Hardy's abiding, often irresistible hold on his readers' attention." Victorian Studies Summer 2001