Tess of the D'urbervilles Abr Booklet.Indd 1 13/6/08 10:39:59 CD 1

Thomas Hardy Tess of the D’Urbervilles Read by Imogen Stubbs CLASSIC FICTION

3 CDs

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 1 13/6/08 10:39:59 CD 1

1 ‘Good night, Sir John’ 4:18 2 The May Day Dance 5:11 3 The ensnaring inn 4:46 4 An accident 3:45 5 Cousins 11:49 6 Tess finds a place 5:43 7 The Chase 14:38 8 ‘Goodbye, my four months’ cousin’ 4:38 9 A Christening 6:27 10 Angel Clare 18:06 Total time on CD 1: 79:27

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 2 13/6/08 10:39:59 CD 2

1 Angel makes plans 3:14 2 Angel chooses a wife 6:43 3 ‘I cannot be your wife’ 8:48 4 Tess’s determination 5:40 5 A drive to the station 9:04 6 Tess’s decision 11:53 7 Tess writes a letter 4:31 8 Wedding Day 10:52 9 ‘Tess, am I to believe this?’ 9:07 10 ‘Dead! dead! dead!’ 6:49 Total time on CD 2: 76:49

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 3 13/6/08 10:39:59 CD 3

1 Izz Huett 7:41 2 A starve-acre place 16:55 3 Temptation of a convert 21:14 4 Angel receives a letter 13:47 5 Another confession 8:12 6 ‘What monstrous place is this?’ 6:08 7 Justice 5:12 Total time on CD 3: 79:15 Total time on CDs 1-3: 3:55:31

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 4 13/6/08 10:39:59 Thomas Hardy Tess of the D’Urbervilles Thomas Hardy was born near Dorchester The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The on June 2nd 1840. It was in 1862, when Woodlanders (1887) and a collection of he moved to London to pursue a career in short stories, Wessex Tales (1888). Tess architecture, that he began to write, but of the d’Urbervilles was published in 1891 he did not begin his first novel until he and his last novel, Jude the Obscure, moved back to Dorset in 1867 to become appeared in 1895. Towards the end of his assistant to John Hicks, an architect and life, Hardy turned to the writing of poetry. church restorer. Only fragments survive Emma died in 1912 and in 1914 he married of this first novel, The Poor Man and the his secretary, Florence Dugdale, with Lady, but he continued to write and in whose help he began his autobiography, 1871 Desperate Remedies was published, The Early Life of Thomas Hardy. This was followed by Under the Greenwood Tree published posthumously, as he died on (1872) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873). In January 11th, 1928. His ashes were laid in 1874 Hardy married his first wife, Emma Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey and Gifford, and in the same year Far from his heart was buried in the grave of his the Madding Crowd was published to first wife at Stinsford, next to the tomb of considerable acclaim. Four years later he his parents. moved back to London; The Return of the Thomas Hardy is admired not only Native was published in the same year and for the power of his storytelling, but for he became a prominent figure in literary his evocation of the English landscape. circles. He wrote in his notebooks: ‘My art is to Returning again to Dorset in 1885, intensify the expression of things as is done Hardy continued his regular output: by Crivelli, Bellini, etc., so that the heart 5

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 5 13/6/08 10:39:59 and inner meaning is made visibly visible.’ He was thus not just interested in the landscape as a mirror for the mood or circumstances of the characters, but he wanted there to be no separation between the two, and it is this unity that gives his novels their particular force and intensity: the tranquil Vale of Blackmoor is Tess’s innocence; the Chase somehow colludes in her seduction; her affair with Angel is also a love affair with the Vale of the Big Dairies; Flintcomb-Ash is an active participant in Tess’s destitution; the altar- stone of Stonehenge offers itself for her ultimate sacrifice. If the individual is indivisible from the landscape, it would seem that mechanisation also has a part to play, and that part is invariably malevolent. We see Tess suffer on the threshing machine, and her long, wet journey to the railway station marks the real beginning of her inevitable tragedy. In part she is that rural idyll which would soon be eclipsed, and finally swept away by the turning of the century.

Notes by Heather Godwin 6

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 6 13/6/08 10:39:59 Imogen Stubbs has worked extensively on stage in the West End and across the country, with major roles in A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Jessica Lange, Uncle Vanya, Othello, Heartbreak House and the title role in St Joan. Her major film credits include Viola in Twelfth Night, Sense and Sensibility and Jack and Sarah. She has been seen on TV in her own detective series Anna Lee, as well as After the Dance, The Rainbow and The Browning Version.

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 7 13/6/08 10:39:59 The music on this recording is taken from the NAXOS catalogue

DVORˇ ÁK STRING QUARTETS VOLUME 4 8.553374 Vlach Quartet, Prague

MENDELSSOHN STRING QUARTETS VOLUME 3 8.550863 Aurora String Quartet

MENDELSSOHN SYMPHONIES NO. 1 & 5 ‘REFORMATION’ 8.550957 National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Reinhard Seifried

SMETANA SHORT ORCHESTRAL PIECES 8.223705 Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), Robert Stankovsky

Music programming by Neville Jason

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 8 13/6/08 10:39:59 Credits

Abridged by Heather Godwin. Produced by Neville Jason Post-production: Christine Hardwick/Simon Weir, The Classical Recording Company Engineer (speech): Alan Smyth, Bucks Audio Recordings

Cover picture: ‘Idle Tears’ by Edward Robert Hughes, (1851–1914) Photo © Bonhams, London Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 9 13/6/08 10:39:59 Other works on Naxos AudioBooks

Tes of the d’Urbervilles, Unabridged Far from the Madding Crowd (Hardy) ISBN: 9789626348673 (Hardy) ISBN: 9789626341360 read by Anna Bentinck read by Neville Jason

The Portrait of a Lady The History of Tom Jones (James) ISBN: 9789626343760 (Fielding) ISBN: 9789626343319 read by Elizabeth McGovern read by Maurice West

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 10 13/6/08 10:40:00 Other works on Naxos AudioBooks

Silas Marner The Mill on the Floss (Eliot) ISBN: 9789626340752 (Eliot) ISBN: 9789626343715 read by Freda Dowie read by Sara Kestelman

Great Expectations Little Dorrit (Dickens) ISBN: 9789626340820 (Dickens) ISBN: 9789626348994 read by Anton Lesser read by Anton Lesser

NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 11 13/6/08 10:40:00 For a complete catalogue and details of how to order other Naxos Audiobook titles please contact:

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NA392812 Tess of the D'Urbervilles abr booklet.indd 12 13/6/08 10:40:00 NAXOS AudioBooks TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES 3 CDs NA392812 13/6/08 10:40:28 Imogen Imogen Stubbs

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