Far From the Madding Crowd

This Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1912 Wessex Edition, emended to correct errors that have crept into the text from the manu- script onwards and to incorporate revisions that Hardy made in his "study copy" of the novel and in his marked printer's copy and page proofs for a Harper and Brothers "sixpenny edition" of 1901, whenever these revisions can confidently be judged to represent Hardy's final de- liberate intention. The resulting text includes revisions by Hardy that have never before appeared in a modern edition. The novel is fully an- notated and is accompanied by Hardy's map of Wessex and a simplified map of the landscape of Far from the Madding Crowd. Textual notes in- clude a list of emendations, examples of variant readings from the man- uscript to the Wessex Edition, and a discussion of the choice of copy text. The textual history of the novel is traced in extracts from studies by Richard Little Purdy and Simon Gatrell.
Background and source materials include extracts from correspon- dence and contemporary reviews. Twentieth-century criticism is repre- sented by Howard Babb, Roy Morrell, Alan Friedman, J. Hillis Miller, Michael Millgate, Penelope Vigar, Peter Casagrande, and Ian Gregor.