The date to place the events described here is the decade between 1840 and 1850. At that time, the old resort—here called Badmouth—still retained flashes of the halo of fun and aristocratic glamour that had shone upon it in the Georgian era, and it could capture the romantic soul and fiery imagination of a lonely resident from some place farther from the shore and more remote and quiet.
Under the collective name of Egdon Heath, which we give to the gloomy region where the novel’s action unfolds, no fewer than a dozen similar heathlands are united, bearing different names; they are indeed united by character and appearance, though their original unity is now somewhat masked by the invasion of strips and wedges of land under cultivation with varying success, as well as by forest plantings. It’s pleasant to dream that somewhere in this vast space—whose southwestern quarter is described here—there is also that heath where, once, the legendary king of Wessex wandered—Lir. July 1895. In 1994, a joint US and UK production adapted the novel into the feature film “Homecoming / The Return of the Native,” starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Clive Owen in the leading roles!