The Blackmooor Vale. Source of photograph: Tess of the D'Urbervilles in the Anniversary Edition of the Wessex Novels, 1920, Frontispiece, facing title-page. Scanned image (2002) by Philip V. Allingham; text by Allingham and George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL.]
According to the editors, many of whose remarks seem based on Thomas Hardy's Wessex (1913) by Herman Lea,
"Amid the North-Eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemoor or Blackmoor . . . in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry" lay the village of Marlott, typical of Marnhull, the home of the Durbeyfield family. Marnhull is six miles from Shaftesbury, and contains a fine church of eighteenth-century Gothic [sic]. The original name of the village was Marlhill, deriving that name from the white clay or marl which is abundant there, and which, after exposure to the air, hardens into freestone. The church and many of the houses are built of it.
Bibliography
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman. "Anniversary Edition of the Wessex Novels." New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1920. This edition derives in part from previous editions and the photographs of 1912.
Last modified 19 April 2024