Wessex Poems and Other Verses by Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

By Thomas Hardy

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Wessex Poems and Other Verses’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Thomas Hardy’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Hardy includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘Wessex Poems and Other Verses’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Hardy’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786568496

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English poet and author who grew up in the British countryside, a setting that was prominent in much of his work as the fictional region named Wessex. Abandoning hopes of an academic future, he began to compose poetry as a young man. After failed attempts of publication, he successfully turned to prose. His major works include Far from the Madding Crowd(1874), Tess of the D’Urbervilles(1891) and Jude the Obscure( 1895), after which he returned to exclusively writing poetry.

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The Complete Works of

THOMAS HARDY

VOLUME 23 OF 33

Wessex Poems and Other Verses

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2014

Version 8

COPYRIGHT

‘Wessex Poems and Other Verses’

Thomas Hardy: Parts Edition (in 33 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 849 6

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [e-mail]

www.delphiclassics.com

Thomas Hardy: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 23 of the Delphi Classics edition of Thomas Hardy in 33 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Wessex Poems and Other Verses from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Thomas Hardy, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Thomas Hardy or the Complete Works of Thomas Hardy in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

THOMAS HARDY

IN 33 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Novels

1, The Poor Man and the Lady

2, An Indiscretion in the Life of an Heiress

3, Desperate Remedies

4, Under the Greenwood Tree

5, A Pair of Blue Eyes

6, Far from the Madding Crowd

7, The Hand of Ethelberta

8, The Return of the Native

9, The Trumpet-Major

10, A Laodicean

11, Two on a Tower

12, The Mayor of Casterbridge

13, The Woodlanders

14, Tess of the D’urbervilles

15, The Well-Beloved

16, Jude the Obscure

The Short Story Collections

17, Wessex Tales

18, Life’s Little Ironies

19, A Group of Noble Dames

The Short Stories

20, The Complete Short Stories

The Verse Dramas

21, The Dynasts

22, Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall

The Poetry Collections

23, Wessex Poems and Other Verses

24, Poems of the Past and the Present

25, Time’s Laughingstocks and Other Verses

26, Satires of Circumstance

27, Moments of VIsion and Miscellaneous Verses

28, Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses

29, Human Shows Far Phantasies Songs, and Trifles

30, Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres

The Criticism

31, The Criticism

The Biographies

32, The Early Life of Thomas Hardy by Florence Hardy

33, The Later Years of Thomas Hardy by Florence Hardy

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Wessex Poems and Other Verses

Wessex Poems and Other Verses is a collection of verses containing fifty-one poems, first published in 1898 by Harper: New York. In the Preface to the work Hardy explains that only four pieces of verse included in the collection had ever been published before and that many of the poems were written many years ago. Hardy emphasises that all the verses ‘are in a large degree dramatic or personative in conception’. One of the writer’s most famous poems is ‘Neutral Tones’, which bears the date 1867, although it may have been written later. It focuses on the death of a romantic relationship: the coldness, the greyness, the hopelessness and bitterness that accompany the demise of love. It portrays the relationship as a ‘winter’s day’ where the ‘sun was white’ and colour, life and vitality has been bleached out of existence where leaves ‘had fallen from an ash, and were gray’. The misery and bitterness of the speaker comes through in the following stanzas as ‘words play between us to and fro/On which lost the more by our love’ and they learn ‘keen lessons that love deceives’ which will forever be associated with this day in form of ‘Your face, and the God-curst sun’ before the poem ends by recalling the imagery at the beginning.

Hardy’s poems contain the same melancholy and sense of powerlessness that is present in his later novels and are set in the remote and unforgiving landscape and wilds of Dorset. Hardy employed a range of forms, from the ballad to the sixteen line sonnet and infuses some of the verses with humour and irony, preventing the work from becoming relentlessly gloomy.

The first edition

CONTENTS

THE TEMPORARY THE ALL

AMABEL

HAP

IN VISION I ROAMED TO -

AT A BRIDAL TO -

POSTPONEMENT

A CONFESSION TO A FRIEND IN TROUBLE

NEUTRAL TONES

SHE AT HIS FUNERAL

HER INITIALS

HER DILEMMA (IN — - CHURCH)

REVULSION

SHE, TO HIM — I

SHE, TO HIM — II

SHE, TO HIM — III

SHE, TO HIM — IV