N. H. Reeve was Professor of English, former COAH Director of Research and Head of Department at Swansea University. He contributed volumes to the Cambridge editions of D. H. Lawrence and Henry James, along with editing Wessex Tales for the Hardy edition. He also published on the work of Rex Warner, J. H. Prynne, and Elizabeth Bowen. Professor Reeve passed away on April 1, 2018. Richard Nemesvari is Professor of English and former Dean of Arts at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. He has published on such authors as Wilkie Collins, the Brontës, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, as well as Thomas Hardy. His most recent publication is the co-edited collection of essays Wilkie Collins in Context. He is General Editor of the Cambridge University Press Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy.

• Introduction; Volume 1: The Three Strangers; The Withered Arm; Fellow-Townsmen; Volume 2: Interlopers at the Knap; The Distracted Preacher; An Imaginative Woman; Apparatus: List of Variants – Accidentals; End-of-Line Word Division; Editorial Emendations; Appendices: Appendix A – Prefaces to Wessex Tales; Appendix B – Frontispieces; Appendix C – Chapter One of 'Fellow-Townsmen' from New Quarterly Magazine; Appendix D – Description of Principal Texts; Appendix E – Description of Manuscripts; Appendix F – Pall Mall Magazine Illustrations for 'An Imaginative Woman'; Explanatory Notes.