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31:3 Book Reviews ous point that architecture was important for Hardy. EquaUy unbalanced are the chapters on Hardy's interest in the theatre, the law, and archaeology. Sometimes, information is misused. For example, Orel reports the story Hardy mentioned to Sir James George Frazer that a Dorset man had told him his trees were faüing to thrive "because he looked at them before breakfast on an empty stomach" (15). Hardy's point, as is clear from the context of Frazer's chapter on homeopathic magic in which the reference appears, is not the gloominess of Max Gate, as Orel suggests, but the folk belief that the anecdote exemplified. Hardy noted down several such reputed incidents of "overlooking," and presents a powerful example of it in his short story "The Withered Arm." Orel's misinterpretations of the evidence are often part of a larger problem: he seems to construct an image of Hardy based partly on fantasy. In "Hardy's Interest in the Theatre," he mentions every reference he can find to drama in the Hardy corpus and then asks whether Hardy was "a novelist who, but for the grace of God, might well have become an actor or dramatist" (37). He wonders "what a successful engagement of Tess in 1910 might have done to Hardy's resolve to write no further fiction and to concentrate exclusively on poetry and an occasional project" (60). He even suggests, with no evidence to support the idea, that "perhaps those long silences at table with Emma enabled Hardy to contemplate at leisure the precise shape and diction of poems he was preparing for pubUcation" (61). Often, the emphasis is on a Hardy that might have been: "I cannot resist wondering how the relationship of these two men [Hardy and KipUng] . . . might have developed if Kipling had settled down in Dorset" (94). Such indulgence of fantasy is not altogether unacceptable in a biographical study, but it ought not to predominate. I should conclude by saying that Orel's book is not completely without merit. Especially interesting is his discussion of the connection between the early sketch "How I Built Myself a House" and the poem "Heiress and Architect," as well as his speculation that Hardy is a possible original for Eustace Cleever in Kipling's "A Conference of the Powers." The description of the development of archaeology during the nineteenth century is also enlightening, especially the link made between Hardy's archaeological writing of the 1880s and the excavations of General Pitt-Rivers. Placed in a context that makes clear both what ground has already been broken and what is being said for the first time, these observations are useful contributions to Hardy criticism. Kristin Brady University of Western Ontario SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY Victorian Short Stories: An Anthology. Selected and Introduced by Harold Orel. London: Dent, 1987. $6.95 £3.95 Movie reviewers get to choose the ten best pictures of the previous year. Anthologists are often set a more difficult task, finding the most representa374 31:3 Book Reviews tive works of a period. Professor Orel chooses with success, provided we grant him the right to include over three fourths of the stories from the late Victorian period, after 1880. Despite the disproportion, this collection gives us a sense of the themes and techniques favored by writers of short fiction during these years. In an age of heightened social consciousness, one expects to find many views of contemporary social issues. The earlier stories present individuals who have the power to hurt others: the hypocritical churchman in Dickens's "George Silverman's Explanation," the corrupt judge in Le Fanu's "Mr. Justice Harbottle ." The later stories expose more pervasive social evil. The protagonist of George Egerton's "Virgin Soil" is trapped by law and custom in a loveless marriage to a callous and adulterous husband, and Thomas Hardy's disgust with class snobbery saturates almost every line of "The Son's Veto." H. G. Wells's brilliant description of an iron works in "The Cone" effectively captures the simultaneous attraction and repulsion we feel in the presence of modem technology . As this sample indicates, Orel's selection makes us appreciate the thematic richness...

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