SOURCE: Wright, T. R. “Diabolical Dames and Grotesque Desires: The Short Stories.” In Hardy and the Erotic, pp. 89-105. London: Macmillan, 1989.

In the following essay, Wright considers the role of the erotic in Hardy's short fiction.

Hardy published nearly fifty short stories in a variety of periodicals from 1865 to 1900, collecting the majority of them for republication in four volumes: Wessex Tales, a set of rural romances drawn from the folklore of the West Country; A Group of Noble Dames, recounting the perverse desires of a number of aristocratic ladies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Life's Little Ironies, a macabre series of illustrations of the tricks fate plays upon loving men and women; and A Changed Man, a miscellaneous collection of tales whose central theme is the chaos introduced into human lives by the irresistible dictates of desire. Each of these volumes contributes to Hardy's exploration of the...