Description
Book Synopsis''Tremendous...utterly absorbing'' Independent
Proud, passionate Eustacia Vye marries Clym Yeobright in the hope that he will help her escape her cramped rural existence. But when their relationship falters and her old lover Damon Wildeve reappears with an unexpected inheritance, Eustacia is faced with a series of decisions upon which multiple lives depend. In a world where misunderstandings can be fatal, Hardy's atmospheric tragedy moves inevitably towards a disastrous climax on the brooding wilds of Egdon Heath.
''Hardy''s novels hold a Shakespearean power of creating a unique world'' John Bayley
See also: Jude the Obscure
Trade ReviewThrobs with a very Victorian sense of geologies, pre-histories and even astronomy; you can feel the planet moving under the feet * Daily Telegraph *
Inimitably brooding style * The Times *
Besides my complete identification with its heroine, I loved the sheer relentless power of the writing. -- Maeve Haran * Independent *
Splendid * Daily Telegraph *
The Return of the Native is . . . thoughtful, valedictory, poetic, tinged with the somberness of an uncertainty which seems to well up from the depths of the author's own subconscious . . . Hardy's sense of the tragic life of human beings, mere small fragments of consciousness in a vast uncaring universe, comes directly from his own youthful awareness of the place and circumstances described in the novel. -- John Bayley
