Audiobook · read by volunteers
Trumpet-Major
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
Read by Rebecca Dittman, RobbieRogers, Jack Farrell, Simon Evers, Roger Melin, Alana Jordan, Becca B, valli, markman, Aaron Elliott · 42 chapters · 11 h 48
About the book
Anne Garland is a young woman living quietly with her widowed mother in a village in Dorset, when a regiment arrives in the district. England is waiting for Napoleon's expected invasion, and the soldiers bring colour, noise and a good deal of excitement to the countryside. Three suitors soon come courting Anne: John Loveday, the honest and loyal trumpet-major; his brother Bob, a sailor with a gift for charm; and Festus Derriman, a swaggering and cowardly neighbour. Thomas Hardy mixes comedy and affection with a gentle sense of what time and war can do. The result is a warm, sunlit novel, full of village life. A team of volunteers shares the forty-two chapters. Humour and tenderness run through a story of country life in a time of alarm. It is Hardy at his sunniest.
Introduction
Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset in 1840 and died in 1928. He began as an architect, then turned to the novel, and later became a celebrated poet. The Trumpet-Major appeared in 1880. It is one of his lighter and more historical books, set in the opening years of the nineteenth century, at a time when the south coast of England feared a French landing. Hardy drew on stories he had heard in his youth from older people who remembered those days.
The village of Overcombe, close to the sea and the downs, is the stage on which the story is played out, and the countryside is as much a character as any of the people. The soldiers' arrival upsets the settled rhythms of the place. Hardy handles this with humour, but beneath the gentle surface lie his usual themes: the pull of duty against desire, the passing of time and the way ordinary lives are touched by great events.
This LibriVox recording lasts almost twelve hours and is divided into 42 sections, including a preface. It is shared among a team of volunteers, so the voices change as the story moves between kitchen, barracks and shore. It is a good choice for listeners who want a Hardy novel that is more cheerful than most. The countryside is described with Hardy's customary care, from the meadows to the mill, and the old village customs are never far from view. His fondness for the people of this corner of Wessex is clear in every scene, and it makes the book a warm place to spend an afternoon.
Behind the comedy and the courtship there is a quiet feeling for how brief such summers are. Hardy's affection for his characters, and for the rural customs of the period, gives the book a gentle glow that sets it apart from his grimmer novels.
Public domain
Thomas Hardy died in 1928: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text