The Trumpet-Major (Thomas Hardy)

Thomas Hardy
The Trumpet-Major: A Tale

An excellent story set near Weymouth (where my grandmother was from) in the early 1800's (times when my ancestors would have lived there) when invasion by Napoleon was seen as imminent. A romantic tale really about three men who woo or don't in turns our heroine. As ever Hardy conjures up the lives of ordinary village folk weaved into a compelling storyline. Some of the actions and deeds are questionable and in some ways makes the story less believable but there again I'm looking at it from a very modern perspective. Indeed Hardy wrote this a number of decades after the events and I understand that he made significant revisions to his novels during the 1870s, 80s & 90s as public tastes and accepted themes changed over those decades. If you think about what was acceptable in 1970 compared to 2000 it's quite a change. A great book set in Hardy's Wessex.