The Return of the Native is not one of Hardy's most famous novels, but it does feature one of his feistiest female characters – Eustacia Vye. The novel tells the story of her life and her love affairs with Damon Wildeve and Clym Yeobright . The setting for the novel is what Hardy called Egdon Heath, a collective name for various heaths that stretched east of Dorchester in Dorset to the Avon valley. Our reporter Fiona Clampin and Professor Nick Groom from Exeter University met guide Angela Bell in Puddletown Forest to trace Eustacia’s footsteps.
