The Trumpet-Major

by Thomas Hardy

Overview

The Trumpet-Major is a novel by Thomas Hardy published in 1880, and his only historical novel, and Hardy included it with his "romances and fantasies". It concerns the heroine, Anne Garland, being pursued by three suitors: John Loveday, the eponymous trumpet major in a British regiment, honest and loyal; his brother Bob, a flighty sailor; and Festus Derriman, the cowardly nephew of the local squire. Unusually for a Hardy novel, the ending is not entirely tragic; however, there remains an ominous element in the probable fate of one of the main characters.

The novel is set in Weymouth during the Napoleonic wars; the town was then anxious about the possibility of invasion by Napoleon. Of the two brothers, John fights with Wellington in the Peninsular War, and Bob serves with Nelson at Trafalgar. The Napoleonic Wars was a setting that Hardy would use again in his play, The Dynasts, and it borrows from the same source material.

Edward Neill has called the novel an attempt to repeat the success of his earlier work Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), after the limited success of his intervening works. The novel originally appeared in 1880 in the Evangelical serial Good Words (January-December) with 33 illustrations by John Collier. The three-volume first edition was published in October 1880. (wikipedia.org)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636379661
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	09/28/2022
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), English poet, dramatist, and novelist, was born on the Egdon Heath in Dorset. He studied in Dorchester and apprenticed to an architect before leaving for London, where he began to write. Unable to find a public for his poetry, which idealized the rural life, he turned to the novel and met with success as well as controversy. The strong public reaction against some of his darker themes turned him back to writing verse. Today several of his novels are considered masterpieces of tragedy.

Nicholas Rowe’s theater credits include The Madness of George III, Nation, Victory, Whipping It Up, and See How They Run. His television work includes Da Vinci’s Demons, Loving Miss Hatto, The Borgias, Beau Brummel, and A Harlot’s Progress, and his films include Nicholas Nickleby, Lock, Stock, and
Two Smoking Barrels, and Young Sherlock Holmes.

Date of Birth:

June 2, 1840

Date of Death:

January 11, 1928

Place of Birth:

Higher Brockhampon, Dorset, England

Place of Death:

Max Gate, Dorchester, England

Education:

Served as apprentice to architect James Hicks

Editorial Reviews

Hearkening back to the Wessex of an earlier Napoleonic period, Hardy’s novel creates a homely world of likeable, though sometimes dull folk, anxious to get on with the business of falling in love despite the threat of imminent landing by the French…For readers used to Hardy’s star-crossed characters, this romance is a delightful discovery.”

AudioFile

Among the great Victorian novelists, only Hardy and Dickens consistently addressed issues of class. Narrator Nicholas Rowe gives a clear portrayal of the accents and diction of various classes, ranging from rural servants to King George III. It’s sometimes hard to distinguish the three major female characters' voices, but the men are clear and distinctive. Those who aren’t familiar with the story’s historical context—Hardy's Wessex from the Napoleonic Wars to the beginning of the Peninsular Campaign—may take a chapter or two to get the spirit of the times. But then these people of the working classes and lower gentry will come to life. It’s not Hardy's best, but it’s still a worthwhile listen. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

JULY 2017 - AudioFile