Wessex Tales and "The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion"—from "Life's Little Ironies" to "Wessex Tales". Six of the short stories were adapted as television dramas by the BBC as the anthology series called "Wessex Tales": Wessex Tales Wessex Tales is an 1888 collection of tales written by English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, many of which are set before Hardy's birth in 1840. In the various short stories, Hardy writes of the true nature of nineteenth-century marriage and its inherent restrictions, the use of grammar as a diluted form of thought, the disparities created by the role of class status in
House of Wessex House of Wessex The House of Wessex, also known as the House of Cerdic ("Cerdicingas" in Old English), refers to the family that initially ruled a kingdom in southwest England known as Wessex, from the 6th century under Cerdic of Wessex until the unification of the Kingdoms of England by Alfred the Great and his successors. Alfred and his successors would also be part of this dynasty, which would continue ruling in the main line all the way until Alfred's descendant, Ethelred the Unready, whose reign in the late 10th century and early 11th century saw a brief period of