"A Mere Interlude" | |
---|---|
Author | Thomas Hardy |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Short story |
Published in | The Bolton Weekly Journal |
Publication type | Periodical |
Media type | |
Publication date | 1885 |
"A Mere Interlude" is a short story by Thomas Hardy. It was first published in The Bolton Weekly Journal in October 1885. [1] The story was reprinted in the collection A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913).
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a "single effect" or mood, however there are many exceptions to this.
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.
A Changed Man and Other Tales is a collection of twelve tales written by Thomas Hardy. The collection was originally published in book form in 1913, although all of the tales had been previously published in newspapers or magazines from 1881 to 1900. There are eleven short stories and a novella The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid. At the end of the book there is a map of the imaginary Wessex of Hardy's novels and poems. Six of the stories were published before 1891 and therefore lacked international copyright protection when the collection began to be sold in October 1913.
Baptista Trewthen is the daughter of a small farmer in St Maria's, one of the Isles of Lyonesse. She works as a schoolmistress in a village near Tor-upon-Sea. During the Easter holidays she accepts a marriage proposal by Mr David Heddegan, a rich man from Giant's Town who is at least 20 years older than herself.
On a Saturday at the end of July, four days before her wedding, she misses the steamboat from Pen-zephyr to St Mary's, and the next boat is only on Tuesday. She meets Charles Stow, her former boyfriend. He persuades her to marry him. The ceremony takes place on Tuesday morning in Trufal. Back in Pen-zephyr Charles takes a plunge in the sea and drowns.
A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S or PS, however these designations are most often used for steamships.
One day later Baptista marries Mr Heddegan as planned, without telling anyone about the brief interlude on the mainland. They spend their wedding night at an inn in Pen-zephyr, accidentally the same place where Charles' corpse is kept.
Mainland is a contiguous landmass that is larger and often politically, economically and/or demographically more significant than politically associated remote territories, such as exclaves or oceanic islands situated outside the continental shelf.
After less than a month a decayed glazier, who witnessed Baptista's first wedding, starts blackmailing her. When he keeps asking for more and more money she finally decides to tell the truth to her husband. He confesses he's a widower himself and father of four daughters. After this she gradually begins to love her stepdaughters and husband.
A glazier is a skilled tradesman responsible for cutting, installing, and removing glass. Glaziers may work with glass in various surfaces and settings, such as windows, doors, shower doors, skylights, storefronts, display cases, mirrors, facades, interior walls, ceilings, and tabletops.
Of all Hardy's stories this is the one with the westernmost location. The Isles of Lyonesse are really the Isles of Scilly. St Maria's is the largest island, St Mary's, and Giant's Town its capital Hugh Town. Pen-zephyr is Penzance in Cornwall. Tor-upon-Sea is Torquay. [2]
The Isles of Scilly is an archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall. One of the islands, St Agnes, is the most southerly point in England, being over 4 miles (6.4 km) further south than the most southerly point of the British mainland at Lizard Point.
St Mary's is the largest and most populous island of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago off the southwest coast of Cornwall in England.
Hugh Town is the largest settlement on the Isles of Scilly and its administrative centre. The town is situated on the island of St Mary's, the largest and most populous island in the archipelago, and is located on a narrow isthmus which joins the peninsula known as the Garrison with the rest of the island.
Lyonesse is a country in Arthurian legend, particularly in the story of Tristan and Iseult. Said to border Cornwall, it is most notable as the home of the hero Tristan, whose father was king. In later traditions, Lyonesse is said to have sunk beneath the waves some time after the Tristan stories take place, making it similar to Ys and other lost lands in medieval Celtic tales, and perhaps connecting it with the Isles of Scilly.
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership.
The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character is an 1886 novel by the English author Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy's Wessex novels, it is set in a fictional rural England with Casterbridge standing in for Dorchester in Dorset where the author spent his youth. It was first published as a weekly serialisation from January 1886.
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Celia Laighton Thaxter was an American writer of poetry and stories. For most of her life, she resided with her father on the Isles of Shoals at his Appledore Hotel. How she grew up to become a writer is detailed in her early autobiography, and her book entitled Among the Isles of Shoals. Thaxter became one of America's favorite authors in the late 19th century. Among her best-known poems are "The Burgomaster Gull", "Landlocked", "Milking", "The Great White Owl", "The Kingfisher", and "The Sandpiper".
Alicia's Diary is a short story written by Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy in 1887. It is the diary of a girl named Alicia that is a tragic romance. The story was reprinted in the 1913 collection A Changed Man and Other Tales.
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Maria Luisa of Spain was a Spanish infanta, daughter of King Charles IV and his wife, Maria Luisa of Parma. In 1795, she married her first cousin Louis, Hereditary Prince of Parma. She spent the first years of her married life at the Spanish court where their first child, Charles, was born.
Cornish mythology is the folk tradition and mythology of the Cornish people. It consists partly of folk traditions developed in Cornwall, England, and partly of traditions developed by Britons elsewhere before the end of the first millennium, often shared with those of the Breton and Welsh peoples. Some of this contains remnants of the mythology of pre-Christian Britain.
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Tristram of Lyonesse is a long epic poem written by the British poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, that recounts in grand fashion the famous medieval story of the ill-fated lovers Tristan and Isolde. It was first published in 1882 by Chatto and Windus, in a volume entitled Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems. Swinburne himself considered Tristram of Lyonesse to be the crowning achievement of his poetic career. William Morris commented that Swinburne's work 'always seemed to me to be founded on literature, not on nature'.
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