The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy

 

From Goodreads

In southern England, a man and a woman's summer love affair leads to an illegitimate child, broken promises, unfulfilled desires, and timeless regrets.

This comes to you courtesy of Miniature Masterpieces who have an excellent range of quality short stories from the masters of the craft. Do search for Miniature Masterpieces at any digital store for further information. This, and these are, Miniature Masterpieces. Join us for the journey. Thomas Hardy – An Introduction Many giants of Literature originate from the shores of these emerald isles; Shakespeare, Dickens, Chaucer, The Bronte’s and Austen to which most people would willingly add the name Thomas Hardy. Far From The Madding Crowd, Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, The Mayor Of Casterbridge are but three of his literary masterpieces. But let us add to this his short stories. They are often overlooked as being the poor, under-developed relative of a greater work. But from writers of the calibre of Hardy this is just not so. He picks stories and creates characters that drive, meld and create pages that in their numerically shorter length are in fact the perfect length.

My thoughts

I am not a big reader of books written by authors of the classics.  However, I grabbed a copy of this as my local Library Reading group had been reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, which I still have to read.    

This is a short story at only 36 pages long that I grabbed.  It's a great little read that will keep you tuning the pages, as the withered arm develops both in profile on the arm of Gertrude and in story,  With hints of the supernatural, magic and secrets this short story will keep you reading too.