Barbara of the House of Grebe
Encyclopedia
Barbara of the House of Grebe is the second of ten short stories
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 in Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

's frame narrative
Frame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...

 A Group of Noble Dames
A Group of Noble Dames
A Group of Noble dames is an 1891 collection of short stories written by Thomas Hardy. It is a frame narrative in which ten members of a club each tell one story about a noble dame in the 17th or 18th century.-Contents:Part I—Before Dinner...

. It is told by the old surgeon. The story was published in The Graphic
The Graphic
The Graphic was a British weekly illustrated newspaper, first published on 4 December 1869 by William Luson Thomas's company Illustrated Newspapers Limited....

 in 1890 and in book form in 1891.

Plot summary

Lord Uplandtowers, a young man who lives in a mansion in Chene Manor, has decided he wants to marry Barbara, the daughter of his neighbour Sir John Grebe. However she elopes with the beautiful Edmond Willowes, a widow's son from a family of glass painters, and marries him without the consent of her parents. A few months later Sir John reconciles with his daughter and her husband. He agrees to support them financially and let them live in Yewsholt Lodge one one condition: Edmond has to go to study in Italy for one year.

During his stay in Italy Edmond has an accident. His face is badly wounded in a fire. When he returns to England he's wearing a mask. In Yewsholt Lodge he takes his mask off before his wife. Barbara is shocked and can't bear to face him. She spends the night alone in the hot-house
Greenhouse
A greenhouse is a building in which plants are grown. These structures range in size from small sheds to very large buildings...

. The next morning she finds a farewell letter from Edmond.

Several years later, when Edmond is dead, Lord Uplandtowers convinces Barbara to marry him now. However she doesn't love him because she's still thinking of her first husband. Every night, while she believes Lord Uplandtowers is asleep, she goes to a closet in her boudoir where she keeps a statue
Statue
A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...

 that Edmond had made of himself in Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

. One night Lord Uplandtowers follows her unnoticed and sees her with her arms around the statue. The next day he hires a sculptor to disfigure the statue's head in the same way Edmond's head was disfigured in the fire. He places the statue in their bedroom until Barbara gets an epileptic seizure and begs him to remove the statue. She finally becomes a loving wife to Lord Uplandtowers.

Time and location

The story takes place around 1780 in Thomas Hardy's Wessex
Thomas Hardy's Wessex
The English author Thomas Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest of England. He named the area "Wessex" after the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the Norman Conquest. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist,...

, more specifically in South Wessex or Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

. Chene Manor, in reality Canford Manor, is a house in Canford Magna
Canford Magna
Canford Magna is a village in Dorset, England. The village is situated just south of the River Stour and lies in between the towns of Wimborne Minster and Poole. The village is the site of the large boarding school - Canford School. The school was previously the mansion and estate of Lord Wimborne....

. Yewsholt Lodge was really called Farrs House. Edmond was from Shottsford Forum, in reality Blandford Forum.

Critical reception

A reviewer from The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...

 called the story "as unnatural as it is disgusting".

T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...

 said the story "would seem to have been written solely to provide a satisfaction for some morbid emotion".

Adaption

The sixth episode of the 1973 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

series Wessex Tales was an adaption of Barbara of the House of Grebe.
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