In Wessex Tales, his first collection of short stories, Hardy recorded the legends, superstitions, local customs, and lore of a Wessex that was rapidly passing out of memory. But these Tales also portray the social and economic stresses of Dorset in the 1880`s, and reveal Hardy`s growing scepticism about the possibility of achieving personal and sexual satisfaction in the modern world. By turns humorous, ironic, macabre, and elegiac, these seven stories show the range of Hardy`s story-telling gifts. The critically established text, the first to be based on detailed study of all revised texts, presents manuscript readings which have never before appeared in print.