A Changed Man, and Other Tales

Thomas Hardy's collection of a dozen shorter tales opens a revealing window onto the full range of his fiction, from romance and mystery to historical drama and supernatural unease. Framed by a modest author's note, the volume invites readers to discover lesser-known stories that are rich in atmosphere, moral tension, and emotional depth. Across provincial towns, military camps, churchyards, and winter gatherings, Hardy explores the fragile line between appearance and reality, where glamour, gossip, duty, and grief collide. In A Changed Man, a convalescent observer watches a provincial town fall under the spell of a crack regiment of Hussars and the dashing, morally ambiguous Captain Maumbry, whose engagement to Laura turns desire and social rivalry into something far more serious. As cholera reaches the town, Laura's romantic illusions give way to compassion and hard labor beside her husband. Other tales turn toward family honor, burial, and irreparable loss, as a soldier's attempt to correct his father's disgraceful grave becomes entangled in practical and moral failure, and later neglect leaves the wound unhealed. Elsewhere, loneliness, suicide, mistaken burial, exile, and homesickness deepen Hardy's portrait of human sorrow, where even celebration can cast a shadow. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.