I was very lucky with this Thomas Hardy Folio Society boxed set.  I picked it up in a second hand book store for a quarter of the “new” price but it looked as good as new.  As you will have guessed by now, I love Folio books! 

I love the way Thomas Hardy uses language.  My favourite is Tess of the D’Urbervilles.  Life treats her so unfairly and I can never read the ending without getting a lump in my throat as her sister and Angel walk away at the moment when she is being executed.  It is full of missed opportunities.  Angel saw her first before all her troubles began, when she was dancing in white in her village.  He missed that chance and then she is left to her fate.  When she meets Alec Hardy says “where was her guardian angel?”.  Angel eventually marries and then deserts her, returning home too late to save her a second time.

There are a few other assorted Folio books in this picture.  Travels of a Victorian Photographer is an interesting photographic record of England taken by Francis Frith.  All those people and places caught in time. 

Bestiary is an unusual book.  It depicts animals, both real and fictional, from the middle ages with descriptions from the time.  

History, historic fiction and biography

Bit of a mixture here.  History, historic fiction and biography. 

The Forest is a wonderful book.  This is a signed copy.  It tells the story of the New Forest in Hampshire through the lives of fictional families.  Each section takes the next part of history, starting with the start of the forest and ending in the present day.  I have read it several times and have re-visited parts of the forest in which the stories are set.  The characters didn’t actually exist, but you feel as if they may have done.

There are two biographies of Dickens (one rather old with an illegible spine) and one of Hilaire Belloc.  There is also Belloc’s The Four Men.  This is story of four friends who walk across Sussex.  You can tell how much he loved the county.

The history books include two by Chris Hare.  He is a local historian who knows everything about Worthing.  I have been to some of his talks and guided walks.  A very interesting man.