Irish Classics

Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy's second novel, was published in 1872 and became the first of his great series of Wessex novels. The book, subtitled A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, tells the endearing tale of a group of church musicians who accompany the hymns at the local Mellstock parish choir and we follow the fortunes of one of its member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day.

When a student arrives in a small town, seeking a quiet place where he can study in peace, he rents an old mansion where a notorious hanging judge once lived. But once he begins receiving regular nightly visits by an enormous rat with malevolent eyes, he soon discovers why the locals fear the judge’s house.

This audiobook collects three short stories by W. B. Yeats: "Rosa Alchemica", "The Tables of the Law", and "The Adoration of the Magi". All three of these esoteric stories feature the character of Michael Robartes (as well as the character of Owen Aherne in the second two tales), and though it may seem obvious that it’s this character that connects all of these tales, what really connects them all is Yeats imagining the hidden, mystical fraternities of old tradition which preoccupied much of his writings and which he personally longed for initiation into.