John Cowper Powys Thomas Hardy, and these novels are set in Somerset and Dorset, part of Hardy's mythical Wessex. American scholar Richard Maxwell describes these four novels "as remarkably successful with the reading public of his time". "Maiden Castle", the last of the Wessex novels, is set in Dorchester, Thomas Hardy's Casterbridge, and which he intended to be a "rival" to Hardy's "Mayor of Casterbridge". All the same, despite his indebtedness to the Victorian novel and his enthusiasm for Hardy and Walter Scott, as well as for lesser figures such as Ainsworth, Powys was clearly a modernist, and has affinities also with Fyodor
Westland Wessex ships and its intention to purchase roughly 30 for anti-submarine patrols, casualty evacuations, and fleet communications duties. The RAN formally accepted the first two of 27 Wessex helicopters in September 1963; 817 Squadron was the first to operate the type; the Wessex and its dunking sonar array quickly proved to be the most effective anti-submarine platform as yet seen in the RAN. The Wessex was a major operational shift for the Fleet Air Arm, enabling the RAN to proceed with the conversion of the aircraft carrier HMAS "Melbourne" as an anti-submarine platform. In typical carrier operations, a Wessex would be