An excellent story-teller, intense and skilful
Thomas Hardy's only historical novel, The Trumpet-Major, is set in Wessex during the Napoleonic Wars.
The world is big, and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.
Intimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy finds herself down and out in L…
In this timeless tale adventure, loyalty, and intrigue, a young man and his spirited comrades, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, navigate duels, political plots, and treachery in 17th century France.