Return of the Native

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Guy Fawkes night, Diggory Venn, a reddleman dyed red from his trade, transports a young woman, Thomasin Yeobright, to her aunt’s house on Egdon Heath. Despite Venn’s love for the sweet-natured Thomasin, he agrees to secure the man of her choice, the fickle innkeeper Damon Wildeve, who delayed his marriage to Thomasin earlier that day. Wildeve is still enchanted by the beautiful Eustacia Vye, who detests the heath upon which she lives with her grandfather and longs for a glamorous life abroad. When Thomasin’s cousin, Clym Yeobright, returns from his life as a diamond merchant in Paris, Eustacia sees her chance to escape. However, Wildeve cannot let her go.

Reviews

‘The real stuff of tragedy’ D. H. Lawrence

About the author

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Dorchester, Dorset. He enrolled as a student in King’s College, London, but never felt at ease there, seeing himself as socially inferior. This preoccupation with society, particularly the declining rural society, featured heavily in Hardy’s novels, with many of his stories set in the fictional county of Wessex. Since his death in 1928, Hardy has been recognised as a significant poet, notably influencing The Movement poets in the 1950s and 1960s.