This Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1912 Wessex edition, emended to correct errors which have crept into the text from the manuscript onward.
It also incorporates revisions that Hardy made in his study copy of the novel and in his marked printers copy and page proofs for the Harper and Brothers sixpenny edition of 1901, whenever these revisions could be confidently judged to represent Hardys final deliberate intent.The resulting text includes revisions by Hardy which have never appeared before in a modern edition.
The novel is fully annotated and is accompanied by Hardys map of Wessex and a simplified map of the landscape of Far from the Madding Crowd.
Textual Notes include a list of emendations, examples of variant readings from the manuscript to the Wessex edition, and a discussion of the choice of copy text.
The textual history of the novel is traced in extracts from studies by Richard Little Purdy and Simon Gatrell.
Backgrounds includes substantial extracts from Hardys correspondence with Leslie Stephen and is followed by a selection of contemporary reviews.
Twentieth-century Criticism is represented by Howard Babb, Roy Morrell, Alan Friedman, J. Hillis Miller, Michael Millgate, Penelope Vigar, Peter J. Casagrande, Ian Gregor, and Albert C. Schweik.
