Wessex Tales

Wessex Tales, by Thomas Hardy
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Title: Wessex Tales Author: Thomas Hardy Release Date: November 2, 2004 [eBook #3056] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WESSEX TALES***
Transcribed from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
WESSEX TALES
Contents: Preface An Imaginative Woman The Three Strangers The Withered Arm Fellow-Townsmen Interlopers at the Knap The Distracted Preacher
PREFACE
An apology is perhaps needed for the neglect of contrast which is shown by presenting two consecutive stories of hangmen in such a small collection as the following. But in the neighbourhood of county-towns tales of executions used to form a large proportion of the local traditions; and though never personally acquainted with any chief operator at such scenes, the writer of these pages had as a boy the privilege of being on speaking terms with a man who applied for the office, and who sank into an incurable melancholy because he failed to get it, some slight mitigation of his grief being to dwell upon striking episodes in the lives of those happier ones who had held it ...