ISBN: 9781442943575

A Laodicean - A Story of Today - By Thomas Hardy A Laodicean is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1881. Set in the more technologically advanced contemporaneous age, the plot exhibits… More...

A Laodicean - A Story of Today - By Thomas Hardy A Laodicean is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1881. Set in the more technologically advanced contemporaneous age, the plot exhibits devices uncommon for Hardy, such as falsified telegrams and faked photographs.A Laodicean is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1881, by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. Set in the more technologically advanced contemporaneous age, the plot exhibits A Laodicean - A Story of Today - By Thomas Hardy A Laodicean is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1881. Set in the more technologically advanced contemporaneous age, the plot exhibits devices uncommon for Hardy, such as falsified telegrams and faked photographs.A Laodicean is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1881, by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. Set in the more technologically advanced contemporaneous age, the plot exhibits devices uncommon for Hardy, such as falsified telegrams and faked photographs. SynopsisPaula Power inherits a medieval castle from her industrialist father who has purchased it from the aristocratic De Stancy family. She employs two architects, one local and one, George Somerset, newly qualified from London. Somerset represents modernity in the novel. In the village there is an amateur photographer, William Dare, who is the illegitimate son of Captain De Stancy, an impoverishe scion of the family. Captain De Stancy represents a dream of medieval nobility to Paula. She is attracted to both men for their different virtues but William Dare decides to intervene to promote his father in her affections. He fakes a telegram and photograph to make it appear that Somerset is leading a dissolute lifestyle. His subterfuge is discovered by Captain De Stancy's sister Charlotte who has befriended Paula. She decides to tell Paula the truth and Paula pursues Somerset to the continent where he has gone mistakenly believing Paula and the Captain to have been married. She finds him and they are reunited and marry. The castle burns down and Somerset proposes to build a modern house in its place. The last line has Paula summing up her dichotomy of mind between modernity and romantic medievalism, and thus the two men, also emphasising the title "a Laodicean" (someone indifferent or half-hearted) - "I wish my castle wasn't burnt; and I wish you were a De Stancy!"

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ISBN: 9781442943575

This novel effectively explores the advent of technology and the institution of hereditary aristocracy prevalent in Britain. Raising some basic issues in a brilliant manner, Hardy present… More...

This novel effectively explores the advent of technology and the institution of hereditary aristocracy prevalent in Britain. Raising some basic issues in a brilliant manner, Hardy presents an independent heroine whose presence adds charm to this work. The issues that were being faced by the society at the transition of the modern and the ancient have been beautifully portrayed. eBook<