[Gutenberg 3056] • Wessex Tales

In addition to his great "Wessex Novels," Thomas Hardy wrote *Wessex Tales* (1896), a collection of six stories written in the 1880s and 1890s that, for the most part, are as bleakly ironic and unforgiving as the darkest of his great novels -- *Jude the Obscure.* But this great novelist began and ended his writing career as a poet. In-between, he wrote a number of books that many readers find emotionally-wrenching, but which are considered among the classics of 19th Century British literature, including *Far from the Madding Crowd,* and *Tess of the D'Urbervilles.* Readers will experience Hardy's uncompromising, unsentimental realism in *Wessex Tales,* and for those seeking a taste of the Dorset poet and novelist, they represent an ideal start.