Thomas Hardy
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There is in England no more real or typical district than Thomas Hardy's imaginary Wessex, the scattered fields and farms of which were first discovered in "Far from the Madding Crowd." It is here that Gabriel Oak observes Bathsheba, the young mistress of Weatherbury Farm, fall victim to her amorous caprices. He serves her through one marriage to a handsome, corruptly sentimental sergeant. Selflessly altruistic, he sees her through another betrothal...
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Thomas Hardy's "The Woodlanders" was first published serially in 1887. The tale takes place in the woodland village of Little Hintock and is centers around the romantic dramas of its inhabitants. The story begins with Giles Winterborne, an honest woodsman, who wishes to marry his childhood sweetheart, Grace Melbury. While the two have been informally betrothed to each other since they were young, Grace gains an education through her father's persistent...
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In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled 'A Story of a Man of Character', Hardy's powerful...
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The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
• New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies...
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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...
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Jude the Obscure, the last completed of Thomas Hardy's novels, began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. Its protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man, a stonemason, who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class, education, religion and marriage. The...
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Tess Durbeyfield knows what it is to work hard and expect little. But her life is about to veer from the path trod by her mother and grandmother. When her ne'er-do-well father learns that his family is the last of a long noble line, the d'Urbervilles, he sends Tess on a journey to meet her supposed kin- a journey that will see her victimized by lust, poverty, and hypocrisy. With its sensitive depiction of one of literature's most admirable and tragic...
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Elfride Swancourt is the daughter of the Rector of Endelstow, a remote sea-swept parish in Corwall based on St Juliot, where Hardy began A Pair of Blue Eyes during the beginning of his courtship of his first wife, Emma. Blue-eyed and high-spirited, Elfride has little experience of the world beyond, and becomes entangled with two men: the boyish architect, Stephen Smith, and the older literary man, Henry Knight. The former friends become rivals, and...
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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...
10) Two on a Tower
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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...
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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...
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Whether you're a long-time fan of Thomas Hardy's works or a first-time reader who is curious about the author of such masterpieces as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd, this collection of short stories offers a gratifying introduction to the renowned British naturalist's literary talent. As part of our mission to publish great works of literary fiction and nonfiction, Sheba Blake Publishing Corp. is extremely dedicated to bringing...
13) Wessex Tales
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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.
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Dip a toe into the literary oeuvre of British novelist and poet Thomas Hardy in this well-curated collection of some of his best short stories. Hardy was famed for his ability to create characters who struggle mightily against social mores and circumstances beyond their control, and this strength shines in the finely drawn characters who populate these tales. As part of our mission to publish great works of literary fiction and nonfiction, Sheba Blake...
15) The Well-Beloved
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Set in the Isle of Slingers modelled on the Isle of Portland the novel continues to explore Hardy's favourite themes of relationships, exploration of human nature and human nature. The story follows Jocelyn Pierston, a celebrated sculptor who tries to create an image of his ideal woman in stone and attempting to find her in the flesh.
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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.
17) Selected Poems
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In the sphere of poets like Swift, Meredith and Kipling, Thomas Hardy is today becoming recognized as one of the greatest English poets of this century. As a young man with interests in journalism, art, and architecture, Hardy achieved greatness in the fiction genre early on, writing novels for a living until his mid-fifties. He then abandoned fiction entirely in order to devote himself to his true passion-poetry. This ample selection of poems demonstrates...
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Ethelberta Petherwin, aka Berta Chickerel, moves with ease between her multiple identities, cleverly managing a brilliant career as a society poet in London. Her family act as her servants to help her conque the male-dominated literary world. Beautiful, clever, and rational, she soon attracts four very persistent suitors: Mr. Julian, Mr. Neigh, Mr. Ladywell, and Lord Mountclere.
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The Hand of Ethelberta explores the class distinctions of Victorian England through the trials of Ethelberta Petherwin. By the age of 18, the humble governess and daughter of a butler marries well, only to become a widow two weeks later. In order to support her mother and ten siblings, clever Ethelberta quickly learns to navigate the complex social world as a poetess and storyteller, attracting four persistent suitors along the way. She must decide...
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Paula Power inherits a medieval castle from her industrialist father who has purchased it from the aristocratic De Stancy family. She employs two architects, one local and one, George Somerset, newly qualified from London. Somerset represents modernity in the novel. The changing of the old order in country manors and mansions may be slow or sudden, may have many issues romantic or otherwise, its romantic issues being not necessarily restricted to...