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Author: Thomas Hardy
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: The Return of the Native is a representative "Character and Environment Novel" written by the renowned British author Thomas Hardy. Set against the Egdon Heath, a vast and timeless moorland in the southwest of England known as Wessex, the novel depicts the tragic destinies of five young men and women. The female protagonist, Tess, is one of the most successfully portrayed heroines in modern British fiction, while the setting of Egdon Heath is a masterpiece of landscape description. It marks an important milestone in the maturation of Hardy's novelistic art and is considered his best novel. Thomas Hardy was one of the Victorian writers with the most readers, a significant representative of critical realism in late 19th-century British fiction, and the "father of modern poetry" for his bold exploration and innovation in the 20th century. He pioneered many themes in 20th-century novels, and his "Character and Environment Novels" represent his highest achievement in realism. As his novels are often set in the vast rural areas of Wessex in southwest England, he is also hailed as the most outstanding rural novelist in Britain.