Thomas Hardy
AUTHOR

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 - 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of novels, including Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Hardy's poetry, though prolific, was not as well received during his lifetime. It was rediscovered in the 1950s, when Hardy's poetry had a significant influence on the Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s, including Philip Larkin.

Most of his fictional works - initially published as serials in magazines - were set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex. They explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances. Hardy's Wessex is based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom and eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Bain News Service, publisher [Public domain, Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Best Sellers

    • The Return of the Native

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Alan Rickman
    • Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4.5 out of 5 stars 811
    • Performance
      4.5 out of 5 stars 738
    • Story
      4 out of 5 stars 717

    Set on Egdon Heath, a fictional barren moor in Wessex, Eustacia Vye longs for the excitement of city life but is cut off from the world in her grandfather's lonely cottage....

    • 5 out of 5 stars

    • Always Hardy

    • By Wallen on 04-20-11

    Regular price: $24.51

    Free with 30-day Trial

    • Tess of the d'Urbervilles

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Davina Porter
    • Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4.5 out of 5 stars 1,354
    • Performance
      4.5 out of 5 stars 1,264
    • Story
      4.5 out of 5 stars 1,261

    Tess Durbeyfield, a peasant girl and cast-off descendant of English aristocracy, has become one of the most famous female protagonists in 19th-century British literature....

    • 5 out of 5 stars

    • Davina Porter Does It Again!

    • By misaki on 06-15-15

    Regular price: $34.99

    Free with 30-day Trial

    • Far From the Madding Crowd

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Jamie Parker
    • Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4.5 out of 5 stars 1,056
    • Performance
      4.5 out of 5 stars 964
    • Story
      4.5 out of 5 stars 962

    When confronted with three suitors, among them the dashing Sergeant Troy, Bathsheba Everdene shows a reckless capriciousness that threatens the stability of the whole community....

    • 5 out of 5 stars

    • Country tales and voices.

    • By Judyth on 01-07-15

    Regular price: $31.49

    Free with 30-day Trial

    • Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Anton Lesser
    • Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4.5 out of 5 stars 95
    • Performance
      5 out of 5 stars 74
    • Story
      4.5 out of 5 stars 72

    Michael Henchard, drunk at a country fair, sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas....

    • 5 out of 5 stars

    • Superb

    • By Tad Davis on 12-17-10

    Regular price: $44.09

    Free with 30-day Trial

    • Jude The Obscure

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
    • Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4 out of 5 stars 103
    • Performance
      4 out of 5 stars 71
    • Story
      3.5 out of 5 stars 72

    This is the story of a young country workman obsessed by his ambition to become an Oxford student, interwoven with his fraught relationships with two women....

    • 5 out of 5 stars

    • Staggering

    • By Tad Davis on 02-16-10

    Regular price: $21.68

    Free with 30-day Trial

    • The Woodlanders

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Samuel West
    • Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4.5 out of 5 stars 155
    • Performance
      4.5 out of 5 stars 108
    • Story
      4.5 out of 5 stars 108

    The Woodlanders concerns the fortunes of Giles Winterborne, whose love for the well-do-do Grace Melbury is challenged by the arrival of a dashing and dissolute doctor....

    • 5 out of 5 stars

    • Thomas Hardy lesser known work

    • By Molly Aultz on 06-12-08

    Regular price: $20.34

    Free with 30-day Trial

    • Under the Greenwood Tree

    • The Mellstock Choir - A Rural Painting of the Dutch School
    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Jamie Parker
    • Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4 out of 5 stars 16
    • Performance
      4.5 out of 5 stars 15
    • Story
      3.5 out of 5 stars 15

    Under the Greenwood Tree is an affectionate and youthful portrait of a world Hardy knew well - village life in 'Wessex' - in which a romantic tale is set against changing circumstances....

    • 3 out of 5 stars

    • I'm a Hardy fan but...

    • By Jordan Rivers on 07-24-15

    Regular price: $24.49

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    • The Well-Beloved

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Robert Powell
    • Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4 out of 5 stars 27
    • Performance
      4.5 out of 5 stars 20
    • Story
      4 out of 5 stars 20

    Set on the Isle of Slingers, this novel follows the exploits of Jocelyn Pierston, a sculptor who falls in love successively with three generations of island women....

    Regular price: $15.17

    Free with 30-day Trial

    • Under the Greenwood Tree

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Peter Joyce
    • Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      3.5 out of 5 stars 9
    • Performance
      4 out of 5 stars 5
    • Story
      3 out of 5 stars 4

    A wonderfully evocative tale of the courtship of Fancy Day....

    • 5 out of 5 stars

    • Beautiful story

    • By Dave on 02-07-11

    Regular price: $13.42

    Free with 30-day Trial

    • A Pair of Blue Eyes

    • By: Thomas Hardy
    • Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
    • Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
    • Unabridged
    • Overall
      4 out of 5 stars 44
    • Performance
      4.5 out of 5 stars 42
    • Story
      4 out of 5 stars 41

    The daughter of the rector of Endelstow, a sparse, sea-swept parish in Cornwall, Elfride is caught between two suitors of very different backgrounds....

    • 3 out of 5 stars

    • Depressing story & unbelievable central character

    • By Molly R. on 08-14-17

    Regular price: $57.39

    Free with 30-day Trial

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