num_pages: 450
description: Tempestuous Eustacia Vye passes her days dreaming of passionate love and the escape it may bring from the small community of Egdon Heath. Hearing that Clym Yeobright is to return from Paris, she sets her heart on marrying him, believing that through him she can leave rural life and find fulfilment elsewhere. But she is to be disappointed, for Clym has dreams of his own, and they have little in common with Eustacia’s. Their unhappy marriage causes havoc in the lives of those close to them, in particular Damon Wildeve, Eustacia’s former lover, Clym’s mother and his cousin Thomasin. The Return of the Native illustrates the tragic potential of romantic illusion and how its protagonists fail to recognize their opportunities to control their own destinies.
language: English
title: The Return of the Native
titlecomplete: The Return of the Native
characters: Clym Yeobright, Damon Wildeve, Diggory Venn, Eustacia Vye, Thomasin Yeobright
genres: Literature, Classics, Novels, Classic Literature, Victorian, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance, British Literature
ratings_count: 37861
places: United Kingdom, Dorset, England
publisher: Penguin Classics