The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy · 1878
Read The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (1878) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/hardy-return-native-1878.txt.
Description
Thomas Hardy published The Return of the Native in 1878, setting it on the wild Egdon Heath in his fictional Wessex. Hardy knew this Dorset landscape from childhood. The heath itself broods over the story almost like a character.
Clym Yeobright, the native, returns from Paris hoping to teach the local people. He marries the restless Eustacia Vye, who dreams only of escaping the heath for a glamorous life. Their mismatch pulls in a former lover, a reddleman, and Clym's stern mother. Misread letters and chance meetings steer everyone toward tragedy. The novel is one of Hardy's most admired studies of longing and fate.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Thomas Hardy |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 1878 |
| COLLECTION | BOOKS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 784 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | Public Domain |
| RIGHTS | PUBLIC DOMAIN |
| SOURCE | Project Gutenberg #122 |