Our Exploits at West Poley - Thomas Hardy (1883)
Our Exploits at West Poley was written by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928). Written in 1883, just before the Mayor of Casterbridge, it was originally serialised in the Boston magazine, The Household, between November 1892 and April 1893. It was subsequently re-published by the OUP in 1952 with illustrations by Lynton Lamb, and by Puffin in 1982, with illustrations by Alexy Pendle. It was Hardy's only children's novel. I am planning along with some other friends and keen readers, a Thomas Hardy reading project, not unlike the Murdoch a month challenge we have undertaken. This new reading challenge will not start till at least July, but I have been anxious to start myself so I have decided to read the fiction (some short stories and this novella) that I haven't read before, in preparation for the challenge. So that during the challenge everything will be at least the second reading for me. This is a delightful little book - a nice quick read. Very different to Hardy's usual fiction of course as the intended audience were children. The language is not what many children today would be used to reading - and although descriptive in parts it is much less so than say the novels. Two boys exploring some caves, discover how to divert the course of a river that flows through West Poley, their actions cause havoc, and they enjoy weilding such power over the villages of East and West Poley. However they are soon endangered by their own actions, and are of course taught a sharp lesson. Without, I hope, giving too much away there isn't the bleak and terrible ending of so much of Hardy's adult fiction in this one.