On a Darkling Plain

Originally published in 1947 and presenting the famed poet-novelist against the background of contemporary thought and society, Harvey Curtis Webster shows that Hardy's later works give consistent evidence of hope; that pervasive pessimism was by no means the keynote of Hardy's thought.

On a Darkling Plain traces the evolution of Hardy's thought, from faith, through disillusionment, to a cautious belief in the ultimate progress of man.