Thomas Hardy is known for his unconventional portrayal of female characters. In Victorian literature, his women are surprisingly complex, sexual, and even "heroic." Jekel's study discusses the development of Hardy's heroines, contrasts them with typical Victorian feminine standards, and compares them to the women who Hardy knew in his personal life.

Thomas Hardy was always fascinated by women. While in life his relationships were often fraught and unhappy, through the heroines of his novels we can see into his sole. This book assesses the influence of Hardy's closest female friends and family on his life and his work and looks at how his response to them moulded his creative genius.

Now back in print, Mrs. Caliban is “totally unforgettable” (The New York Times Book Review) and “something of a miracle” (The New Yorker) In the quiet suburbs, while Dorothy is doing chores and waiting for her husband to come home from work, not in the least anticipating romance, she hears a strange radio announcement about a monster who has just escaped from the Institute for Oceanographic Research… Reviewers have compared Rachel Ingalls’s Mrs. Caliban to King Kong, Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, the films of David Lynch, Beauty and the Beast, The Wizard of Oz, E.T., Richard Yates’s domestic realism, B-horror movies, and the fairy tales of Angela Carter—how such a short novel could contain all of these disparate elements is a testament to its startling and singular charm.