Thomas Hardy

Gabriel Oak observes Bathsheba, the young mistress of Weatherbury Farm, and falls victim to her amorous caprices. He stands by her through one marriage to a handsome, corruptly sentimental sergeant. Selflessly altruistic, he sees her through another betrothal to her compulsive, puritanical neighbor-as unaware as she of the stroke of Fate that will effect their ultimate union.

Forced by her parents' ambitions among her wealthy D'Urberville cousins, Tess Durbeyfield attracts the unscrupulous Alec. Seduced and discarded, she finds work as a milkmaid, and her steadfast integrity is finally rewarded by the love of Angle Clare. Violated by one man, forsaken by another, Tess Durbeyfield is the magnificent and spirited heroine of Thomas Hardy's immortal work. Of all the great English novelists, no one writes more eloquently of...

A cruel joke at a country fair goes too far when a drunken laborer auctions off his wife and child to the highest bidder. So begins The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy's gripping tale of a man's rise and fall amid the natural beauty and human brutality of a rural English community. First published serially in 1886, the novel was an immediate success with critics, who praised its realism and poetic style. Rich in descriptive powers and steeped...

Before Grace Melbury went away to school, she was in love with Giles Winterborne, a simple woodsman in the forests of Blackmoore Vale. But Grace's schooling has given her a taste for refinement, and upon her return she finds herself drawn to a dashing newcomer, Dr. Edred Fitzpiers. This romantic triangle is the focus of Thomas Hardy's novel of betrayal, disillusionment, and moral compromise. The story unfolds in a lavishly evoked landscape that becomes...

First published anonymously in 1872, "Under the Greenwood Tree" is Thomas Hardy's story of the romantic entanglement between church musician, Dick Dewey, and the attractive new school mistress, Fancy Day. A pleasant romantic tale set in the Victorian era, "Under the Greenwood Tree" is the first of Hardy's "Wessex" novels and is one of his most gentle and pastoral stories. Dick falls in love with the beautiful and talented Fancy the moment he meets...

The Trumpet-Major is a novel by Thomas Hardy published in 1880, and his only historical novel. It concerns the heroine, Anne Garland, being pursued by three suitors: John Loveday, the eponymous trumpet major in a British regiment, honest and loyal; his brother Bob, a flighty sailor; and Festus Derriman, the cowardly nephew of the local squire. Unusually for a Hardy novel, the ending is not entirely tragic; however, there remains an ominous element...

In "Two on a Tower," a love story set against the background of the stellar universe, Hardy defied social norms of the day and shocked his readers. In what is today seen as the author's most important portrayal of love across physical and societal divides, the novel tells the story of Lady Constantine, a married, older, aristocratic, religious woman who falls in love with Swithin St. Cleeve, a young astronomer, single, lower class, and agnostic. Hardy's...

A young woman, Cytherea Graye, is forced by poverty to accept a post as lady's maid to the eccentric Miss Aldclyffe, the woman whom her father had loved but had been unable to marry. Cytherea loves a young architect, Edward Springrove, but Miss Adclyffe's machinations, the discovery that Edward is already engaged to a woman whom he does not love, and the urgent need to support a sick brother drive Cytherea to accept the hand of Aeneas Manston, Miss...

Ironic short stories. "Stockdale, a lonely young fellow, who had for weeks felt a great craving for somebody on whom to throw away superfluous interest, and even tenderness, was not sorry to join her." A collection of six novellas, written in the 1880s and 1890s, about the true nature of nineteenth century marriage and its inherent restrictions.

A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters. The following stories are featured in this collection: The Son's Veto, For Conscience' Sake, A Tragedy of Two Ambitions, On the Western Circuit, To Please his Wife, The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion, A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four, The Fiddler of the Reels.