The Return of the Native by Hardy, Thomas - 1979

Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1979. Hardcover. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾ in. - 9¾ in.Tall. Agnes Miller Parker.. Illustrated by Agnes Miller Parker.. Collector;s edition. Bound in original green genuine full leather. Publisher's bookplate. Moire endpapers. Silk ribbon place marker. Decoration and lettering stamped in gilt.. Four raised bands. Publisher's bookplate. One of Thomas Hardy's most powerful works, The Return of the Native centers famously on Egdon Heath, the wild, haunted Wessex moor that D. H. Lawrence called "the real stuff of tragedy." The heath's changing face mirrors the fortunes of the farmers, inn-keepers, sons, mothers, and lovers who populate the novel. The "native" is Clym Yeobright, who comes home from a cosmopolitan life in Paris. He; his cousin Thomasin; her fiancé, Damon Wildeve; and the willful Eustacia Vye are the protagonists in a tale of doomed love, passion, alienation, and melancholy as Hardy brilliantly explores that theme so familiar throughout his fiction: the diabolical role of chance in determining the course of a life.