Thomas Hardy and Victorian Communication

This book explores the relationship between Thomas Hardys works and Victorian media and technologies of communication especially the penny post and the telegraph. Through its close analysis of letters, telegrams, and hand-delivered notes in Hardys novels, short stories, and poems, it ties together a wide range of subjects: technological and infrastructural developments; material culture; individual subjectivity and the construction of identity; the relationship between private experience and social conventions; and the new narrative possibilities suggested by modern modes of communication.