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 determining societal rank, the stance of women in society and the severity of even minor diseases causing the rapid onset of fatal symptoms prior to the introduction of sufficient medicinal practices. A focal point
Æthelred of Wessex Æthelred of Wessex Æthelred I (Old English: "Æþelræd", sometimes rendered as Ethelred, "noble counsel"; – 871) was King of Wessex from 865 to 871. He was the fourth son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. He succeeded his brother, Æthelberht (Ethelbert), as King of Wessex and Kent in 865. In 853 his younger brother Alfred went to Rome, and according to contemporary references in the "Liber Vitae" of San Salvatore, Brescia, Æthelred accompanied him. He first witnessed his father's charters as an Ætheling in 854, and kept this title until he succeeded to the throne in 865. He may have acted