LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION PART ONE:THE WRITER AND HIS SETTING Chronological table 1 HARDYS LIFE Childhood and youth Tryphena,Emma and the early novels Architecture and literature The middle years Emma,Florence and the later years 2 HARDY THE COUNTRYMAN William Barnes and provincialism Social conditions in Dorset Conclusion:Hardy and Nature 3 HARDY THE VICTORIAN Hardy,the Romantics and Swinburne Hardy,the Agnostics and Pessimism Mill and the idea of liberty Hardys politics Hardy and later novelists PART TWO:CRITICAL SURVEY 4 THE HARDY HERO AND HIS PREDICAMENT Gabriel Oak Diggory Venn and Clym Yeobright Giles Winterbourne Angel Clare Jude Fawley 5 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE 6 THE SHORT STORIES AND DYNASTS Short stories The Dynasts 7 SELECTED POEMS Early poems Hardys black period Turn of the century poems Poems to Emma Late Poems PART THREE:REFERENCE SECTION Map of Wessex Short biographies Gazetteer Further reading Appendix:serialization and Hardys texts INDEX