The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales

Thomas Hardy

Jun. 2005 · Penguin UK

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The darkly passionate short stories of Thomas Hardy are compelling explorations of love, social class, superstition and legend. This collection contains many of his finest and most representative, and includes 'The Withered Arm', an eerie depiction of arcane witchcraft in nineteenth-century England; 'Barbara of the House of Grebe', in which a beautiful man's tragic disfigurement by fire is savagely exploited by his rival; 'The Son's Veto', showing the cruelty of an educated youth towards his ignorant but tender mother; and 'The Distracted Preacher', the story of one man's conflict between heartfelt love and his own sense of moral and civic duty. By turns moving and poetic, and surprisingly modern and brutally macabre, these eloquent tales may be numbered among the greatest creations of Hardy's genius.

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Susan Hill was born in Scarborough in 1942, and educated at grammar schools there and in Coventry. She read English at King's College, London, of which she is now a Fellow. As well as I'm the King of the Castle, her novels include Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, In the Springtime of the Year, Air and Angels, The Service of Clouds,The Various Haunts of Men, The Pure in Heart, The Rise of Darkness, The Beacon, The Vows of Silence and The Small Hand. She has written several volumes of short stories, including A Bit of Singing and Dancing; two ghost novels, The Woman in Black and The Mist in the Mirror; and a number of stories for children. Her autobiographical books are The Magic Apple Tree and Family. She is married with two adult daughters and lives in North Norfolk.