A Group of Noble Dames

By Thomas Hardy

It was apparently an idea, rather than a passion, that inspired Lord Uplandtowers' resolve to win her. Nobody ever knew when he formed it, or whence he got his assurance of success in the face of her manifest dislike of him. Possibly not until after that first important act of her life which I shall presently mention. His matured and cynical doggedness at the age of nineteen, when impulse mostly rules calculation, was remarkable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sheba Blake Publishing
• Release date: Mar 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781304884831

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is best known for his novels, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895), which was denounced as morally objectionable. Hardy, disgusted with this reaction, declared he would never write fiction again and devoted the rest of his literary career to poetry.

Reviews for A Group of Noble Dames

[philsyphe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found the tales in this collection a bit hit or miss. Can’t remember any specifics, unfortunately, as I’m reviewing this nearly six years after reading it, but as it’s Thomas Hardy, I would like to give it a second read some time.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I quite enjoyed this group of short stories with the common theme of the lives and loves of upper class women. Some of the situations these women got into seem incredibly modern i.e. children conceived out of wedlock, running away with unsuitable men and finding out that your husband is already married to someone else. However I guess I shouldn't be surprised that women and men followed their passions then as they do now. Nor that they sometimes lived to regret it.Each story is narrated by a different member of the Wessex Field and Antiquarian Clubs. Usually the meetings were devoted to "papers on deformed butterflies, fossil ox-horns, prehistoric dung-mixens, and such like" but on this occasion the planned field trip couldn't take place due to rain. So the local historian produced a manuscript of a story about The First Countess of Wessex and read it to entertain the members. That story reminded someone else of another which reminded another member of a story they had been told and so on.I think the story I liked most was the eigth about The Lady Penelope. She was courted by three men at the same time and whenever one suitor encountered another suitor paying his respects to Penelope tempers flared. Penelope told them that she would not allow a man in her presence again if he broke the peace with one of the others. She then made a declaration that she soon regretted:'Have patience, have patience, you foolish men! Only bide your time quietly, and, in faith, I will marry you all in turn.'That didn't come out quite right but the men laughed and repeated the remark to their acquaintances until all the folk in the county knew what Penelope had said. She eventually decided to marry one of them but he died a few months after the wedding. One of the other men soon began to court the widow and, although of the two remaining Penelope liked the other best, since her first choice was out of the country she decided to marry the man at hand. She soon regretted her choice because this man was quite cruel to her. He became ill and died too but again the third man was out of the country. Finally the third suitor returned and, after a decent interval, the two were wed. However, rumours started to fly that Penelope had poisoned her second husband and when the third heard these he left the country and Penelope. Penelope wasted away in his absence and he returned just in time for Penelope to declare on her deathbed that she had not poisoned her second husband. This was borne out by a physician who had examined the body and found that the death was by natural causes. It was too late to save Penelope but it did clear her name. This, to me, is pure Hardy.