Three novels of love, ambition, and nineteenth-century English society. This volume includes three of the greatest works by the iconic Victorian novelist. The Return of the Native: Eustacia Vye yearns to escape the village of Egdon Heath, but her marriage to a well-traveled man doesn’t bring the adventure she craves, in this novel that brilliantly evokes the dangerous allure of romantic fantasies. Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A young woman struggles against tradition and circumstance in this story of love, class, and deceit. The Woodlanders: Grace Melbury is torn between a wealthy, unfaithful husband and the humble woodsman she truly loves in this novel that examines the perils of social ambition.

"Great authors" are increasingly being encountered by general audiences and critics thanks to films and television programs that have been adapted from their best-known works. Thomas Hardy is one of those authors. His work has inspired filmmakers from the silent age and modern times. This book is the first book-length study in what has become a growing field of interest in film adaptations of Hardy's novels. Part One of this book analyzes the popular image of Hardy and his work, the reproduction of this image in film adaptations, and critical stereotypes about him and his fiction. Part Two juxtaposes Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd and Schlesinger's adaptation, Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Polanski's adaptation, and Hardy's Jude the Obscure and Winterbottom's adaptation. Each discussion of the novel and adaptation in question considers the novel itself, the critical history of the novel, how it has been adapted to film, and how the individual filmmakers have struggled with problems inherent in Hardy's novels. Part Three analyzes adaptations of The Woodlanders, The Scarlet Tunic, and The Claim, all of which have scarcely been seen in the United States or which were not distributed in the United States, and four television movies and miniseries that were based on Hardy's work.

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer--excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.

This Combo Collection (Set of 3 Books) includes All-time Bestseller Books. This anthology contains: The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters A Pair of Blue Eyes Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman