Excerpt from Wessex By some strange chance the term Wessex, as denot ing that portion of southern and south-western England which in Saxon times formed the kingdom of the West Saxons, almost disappeared from the language and lost significance, becoming a mere historical term. It was left to the genius of a Wessex-born novelist and poet, Thomas Hardy, to revive the name in 1874, and by such reincarnation to arouse a keen and ever, though slowly, increasing interest in the fayre land of Wessex, its people, and its scenery. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.