Linda M. Shires Libri

A special edition of Hardy's brilliant novel to tie in with the major new film starring Carey Mulligan, Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge and Matthias Schoenaerts, based on David Nicholls' screenplay.Hardy's powerful novel of swift sexual passion and slow-burning loyalty centres on Bathsheba Everdene, a proud working woman whose life is complicated by three different men - respectable farmer Boldwood, seductive Sergeant Troy and devoted Gabriel - making her the object of scandal and betrayal. Vividly portraying the superstitions and traditions of a small rural community, Far from the Madding Crowd shows the precarious position of a woman in a man's world.Formerly a prize-winning architectural student, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) went on to become a prolific novelist and poet. Far From the Madding Crowd is the second of Hardy's great series of Wessex novels. His other novels include Under the Greenwood Tree, The Return of the Native, Two on a Tower, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, all of which are available in Penguin Classics.

Telling Stories overturns traditional definitions of narrative by arguing that any story, whether a Bette Davis film, a jeans ad, a Jane Austen novel or a 'Cathy' comic, must be related to larger cultural networks. The authors show how meanings and subjectivity do not exist in isolation, but are manufactured by the narratives our culture reads and watches every day. They call for a critical practice that, through the fracturing of texts, can alter the grounds of knowledge and interpretation. This timely study will interest critics of narrative and culture, as well as students wanting to extend post-Saussurean theories to poopular and canonical cultures, and to the dynamics of story-telling itself.

Focusing on the 1830s to the late 1870s, this work explores the evolution of classical perspective in aesthetic practices in England. Linda M. Shires highlights how artists and writers innovatively employed techniques of dissolution, combination, and multiple viewpoints, challenging the conventional timeline established by intellectual historians. Through a detailed examination of various texts and artistic expressions, the book reveals the early experimentation that shaped the visual and literary landscape of the period.