The Connell Guide To Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Cedric Watts

The Connell Guide To Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Cedric Watts

Few novels have caused more of a stir than Tess of the d'Urbervilles. In England, the Duchess of Abercorn stated that she divided her dinner-guests according to their view of Tess. If they deemed her a little harlot, she put them in one group; if they said Poor wronged innocent , she put them in another. It is a telling illustration of the novel's word-of-mouth success. The Daily News wittily claimed that pessimism (we had almost said Tessimism) is popular and fashionable. Fan-mail arrived: Hardy said that his mail from readers even included confessional letters from various wives who, like Tess, had gained premarital sexual experience but, unlike her, had not told their husbands of it. Hardy's fame was now so great that he was a frequent guest at fashionable dinner parties. In 1892 he recorded that Tess's fame had spread round the world and that translations were multiplying, its publication in Russia exciting great interest. Controversy generated publicity. Publicity generated prosperity. Sales of Tess far surpassed those of any of Hardy's previous works, and between 1900 and 1930 was reprinted some forty times in England alone. In addition to making Hardy famous and rich, the scandalous Tess attracted, and has continued to attract, an extraordinary range of critical opinion. Victorian reviewers, humanists, neo-Marxists, deconstructionists, cultural materialists, new historicists: everyone has had something to say about the novel. This book, drawing on the best of these critics, shows why, for all its faults, it has such power, and explains the angry and uncompromising vision of the world contained within its pages.

John Sutherland, described by Claire Tomalin as the sharpest and wittiest of literary commentators, is Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus, UCL, and has for many years been a visiting professor at the Californian Institute of Technology. He is the author of many books and more editions than he cares to count. He writes and reviews widely in the UK and the US. His most recent books are: The Boy who Loved Books (2007), Magic Moments (2008), Curiosities of Literature (2008), The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction, 2nd Edition (2009), 50 Ideas in Literature You Really Need to Know (2010, with Stephen Fender). He's currently working on Lives of the Novelists. Jolyon Connell is the founder and editorial director of The Week and Money Week. A former Washington Correspondent of The Sunday Times, and deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph, he has a first-class degree in English from the University of St Andrews and an honorary doctorate from the same university.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781907776090
ISBN 10	1907776095
Title	The Connell Guide To Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Ubervilles
Author	Cedric Watts
Series	The Connell Guide To
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	CONNELL PUBLISHING LTD
Year published	2012-06-15
Number of pages	136
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.