The Return of the Native: New Editions of Old Conflicts

Thomas Hardy's two comments about The Return of the Native have contributed to a critical misreading of that novel. First, in a letter to Arthur Hopkins (his illustrator for the serialized version appearing in Belgravia in 1878), Hardy cryptically ranks the characters: “‘The order of importance of the characters is as follows: 1. Clym Yeobright 2. Eustacia 3. Thomasin & the reddleman 4. Wildeve 5. Mrs. Yeobright.’”* Second, in a note added to the sixth book of The Return of the Native in April 1912, Hardy seems to cast doubt upon that book's artistic integrity: He admits that “certain circumstances of serial publication” forced him to devise a happy ending in the form of a marriage between Thomasin and Venn.** Critics have followed Hardy's lead, naturally enough, by both ignoring Mrs. Yeobright's indomitable influence, not only on Clym's character but on the structure of the plot as well,† and by persisting in their view of the Book Sixth as a mistake, an excrescence, or a “comic epilogue.”‡