Wessex Poems and Other Verses Wessex Poems and Other Verses Wessex Poems and Other Verses (often referred to simply as "Wessex Poems") is a collection of fifty-one poems set against the bleak and forbidding Dorset landscape by English writer Thomas Hardy. It was first published in 1898 by New York: Harper, , and contained a number of illustrations by the author himself. The collection met a broadly hostile reception, critics being accustomed to Hardy as a (controversial) writer of prose alone. Hardy himself was taken aback by the failure to recognise his dry humour, as in the (slightly bawdy) 'Bride-Night Fire'. On a more personal
Ecgberht, King of Wessex Ecgberht, King of Wessex Ecgberht (771/775 – 839), also spelled Egbert, Ecgbert, or Ecgbriht, was King of Wessex from 802 until his death in 839. His father was Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s Ecgberht was forced into exile by Offa of Mercia and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric's death in 802 Ecgberht returned and took the throne. Little is known of the first 20 years of Ecgberht's reign, but it is thought that he was able to maintain the independence of Wessex against the kingdom of Mercia, which at that time dominated the other southern English kingdoms. In