The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales
Thomas Hardy's short stories reveal a literary persona, a creative intelligence and an imaginative vision uniquely and unmistakably his own.\ Those contained within this volume are among his finest and most representative and include The Withered Arm, one of his best known and most gripping; Barbara of the House of Grebe, said by T. S. Eliot to portray 'a world of pure evil'; The Son's Veto, regarded by Hardy as his best story; and, of course, The Distracted Preacher, possible the most...
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Eleven of Hardy's best and most representative stories, including "The Withered Arm" and "A Tragedy of Two Abitions." Edited and introduced by Susan Hill.BiographyVictorian novelist and poet Thomas Hardy focused much of his work -- including classics like Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) on man's futile struggle against unseen forces. Of his rather unromantic outlook on life, Hardy once said, "Pessimism is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed."
Hardy's Life and Works: a Chronology Introduction\ 1. Thomas Hardy as a Short Story Writer\ 2. The Selected Stories\ Hardy's Wessex\ Map Key to Place-Names\ The Distracted Preacher A Mere Interlude The Withered Arm A Tragedy of Two Ambitions The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion Barbara of the House of Grebe On the Western Circuit The Son's Veto The Fiddler of the Reels An Imaginative Woman The Grave by the Handpost\ Hardy's General Preface to the Wessex Edition of 1912\ Bibliographical Note Note on the Text Explanatory Notes
