Far from the Madding Crowd: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism

Front Cover
Norton, 1986 - Fiction - 472 pages
It also incorporates revisions that Hardy made inhis "study copy" of the novel and in his marked printer's copy and pageproofs for the Harper and Brothers "sixpenny edition" of 1901, wheneverthese revisions could be confidently judged to represent Hardy's finaldeliberate intent.

The resulting text includes revisions by Hardy which have neverappeared before in a modern edition.

The novel is fully annotated and is accompanied by Hardy's map ofWessex and a simplified map of the landscape of Far from the MaddingCrowd.

"Textual Notes" include a list of emendations, examples of variantreadings from the manuscript to the Wessex edition, and a discussion ofthe choice of copy text.

The textual history of the novel is traced in extracts from studies byRichard Little Purdy and Simon Gatrell.

"Backgrounds" includes substantial extracts from Hardy's correspondencewith Leslie Stephen and is followed by a selection of contemporaryreviews.

Twentieth-century "Criticism" is represented by Howard Babb, RoyMorrell, Alan Friedman, J. Hillis Miller, Michael Millgate, PenelopeVigar, Peter J. Casagrande, Ian Gregor, and Albert C. Schweik.

About the author (1986)

Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840, in Higher Bockhampton, England. The eldest child of Thomas and Jemima, Hardy studied Latin, French, and architecture in school. He also became an avid reader. Upon graduation, Hardy traveled to London to work as an architect's assistant under the guidance of Arthur Bloomfield. He also began writing poetry. How I Built Myself a House, Hardy's first professional article, was published in 1865. Two years later, while still working in the architecture field, Hardy wrote the unpublished novel The Poor Man and the Lady. During the next five years, Hardy penned Desperate Remedies, Under the Greenwood Tree, and A Pair of Blue Eyes. In 1873, Hardy decided it was time to relinquish his architecture career and concentrate on writing full-time. In September 1874, his first book as a full-time author, Far from the Madding Crowd, appeared serially. After publishing more than two dozen novels, one of the last being Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Hardy returned to writing poetry--his first love. Hardy's volumes of poetry include Poems of the Past and Present, The Dynasts: Part One, Two, and Three, Time's Laughingstocks, and The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall. From 1833 until his death, Hardy lived in Dorchester, England. His house, Max Gate, was designed by Hardy, who also supervised its construction. Hardy died on January 11, 1928. His ashes are buried in Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Robert C. Schweik was Distinguished Teaching Professor of English at the State University of New York, College at Fredonia, and had been Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Trier, West Germany, and Stockholm University, Sweden, and a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright-Hays Program. He was co-author of Reference Sources in English and American Literature and Hart Crane: A Descriptive Bibliography, the editor of Wuthering Heights, and the author of articles on Hardy, Browning, and cultural history.

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