Thoughts at the half-way point of Wessex Tales

There are moments when Hardy can scare you, tear at your heart strings or make you smile and all of those emotions are roused in this collection of short stories.

So far there has been the story of the criminal singing next to his hangman and then escaping capture, the love struck Hussar who misses out on escaping with his beauty with fatal consequences and a bit of witch craft.

But what you are struck by here is the way that Hardy is able to quickly pen a description of a world that the modern reader can only imagine. Country people and traditions are laid bare by a writer who writes about them with a clear amount of tenderness as well as a degree of scepticism.

Will pull together a more comprehensive review on completion of reading the book...