"The Return of the Native" (1878) followed "Far From the Madding Crowd" (1874) as the second of Thomas Hardy's great Wessex novels. Set in Egdon Heath, a barren, windblown place, "The Return of the Native" tells the tangled web of love relationships between four young people -- the wild Eustacia, gentle Thomasin, brutal Wildeve, and long-suffering Clym. Thomas Hardy began and ended his writing career as a poet. In between, he wrote a number of books that many readers find emotionally-wrenching, but which are considered among the classics of 19th Century British literature, including "Far From the Madding Crowd," and "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." Readers will experience Hardy's realism in "The Return of the Native," but here, it is tempered with romance and redemption.