Thomas Hardy Popular Books
Thomas Hardy Biography & Facts
Thomas Hardy (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, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain such as those from his native South West England. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in south-west and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. Life and career Early life Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton (then Upper Bockhampton), a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford to the east of Dorchester in Dorset, England, where his father Thomas (1811–1892) worked as a stonemason and local builder. His parents had married at Melbury Osmond on 22 December 1839. His mother, Jemima (née Hand; 1813–1904), was well read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at the age of eight. For several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential. Because Hardy's family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at the age of sixteen, when he became apprenticed to James Hicks, a local architect. He worked on the design of the new church at nearby Athelhampton, situated just opposite Athelhampton House where he painted a watercolour of the Tudor gatehouse while visiting his father, who was repairing the masonry of the dovecote. He moved to London in 1862 where he enrolled as a student at King's College London. He won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. He joined Arthur Blomfield's practice as assistant architect in April 1862 and worked with Blomfield on Christ Church, East Sheen Richmond, London where the tower collapsed in 1863, and All Saints' parish church in Windsor, Berkshire, in 1862–64. A reredos, possibly designed by Hardy, was discovered behind panelling at All Saints' in August 2016. In the mid-1860s, Hardy was in charge of the excavation of part of the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church before its destruction when the Midland Railway was extended to a new terminus at St Pancras. Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was acutely conscious of class divisions and his social inferiority. During this time he became interested in social reform and the works of John Stuart Mill. He was introduced by his Dorset friend Horace Moule to the works of Charles Fourier and Auguste Comte. Mill's essay On Liberty was one of Hardy's cures for despair, and in 1924 he declared that "my pages show harmony of view with" Mill. He was also attracted to Matthew Arnold's and Leslie Stephen's ideal of the urbane liberal freethinker. After five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling in Weymouth, and decided to dedicate himself to writing. Personal In 1870, while on an architectural mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall, Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford, whom he married in Kensington in late 1874, renting St David's Villa, Southborough (now Surbiton) for a year. In 1885 Thomas and his wife moved into Max Gate in Dorchester, a house designed by Hardy and built by his brother. Although they became estranged, Emma's death in 1912 had a traumatic effect on him and after her death, Hardy made a trip to Cornwall to revisit places linked with their courtship; his Poems 1912–13 reflect upon her death. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior. He remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry. In his later years, he kept a Wire Fox Terrier named Wessex, who was notoriously ill-tempered. Wessex's grave stone can be found on the Max Gate grounds. In 1910, Hardy had been appointed a Member of the Order of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was nominated again for the prize 11 years later and received a total of 25 nominations until 1927. He was at least once, in 1923, one of the final candidates for the prize, but was not awarded. Hardy and the theatre Hardy's interest in the theatre dated from the 1860s. He corresponded with various would-be adapters over the years, including Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 and Jack Grein and Charles Jarvis in the same decade. Neither adaptation came to fruition, but Hardy showed he was potentially enthusiastic about such a project. One play that was performed, however, caused him a certain amount of pain. His experience of the controversy and lukewarm critical reception that had surrounded his and Comyns Carr's adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd in 1882 left him wary of the damage that adaptations could do to his literary reputation. So, in 1908, he so readily and enthusiastically became involved with a local amateur group, at the time known as the Dorchester Dramatic and Debating Society, but that would become the Hardy Players. His reservations about adaptations of his novels meant he was initially at some pains to disguise his involvement in the play. However, the international success of the play, The Trumpet Major, led to a long and successful collaboration between Hardy and the Players over the remaining years of his life. Indeed, his play The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse (1923) was written to be performed by the Hardy Players. Later years From the 1880s, Hardy became increasingly involved in campaigns to save ancient buildings from destruction, or destructive modernisation, and he became an early member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. His correspondence refers to his unsuccessful efforts to prevent major alterations to the parish church at Puddletown, close to his home at Max Gate. He became a frequent visitor at Athelhampton House, which he knew from his.... Discover the Thomas Hardy popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Thomas Hardy books.
Best Seller Thomas Hardy Books of 2024
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La Templanza
María DueñasLa autora bestseller de El Tiempo Entre Costuras, María Dueñas nos regala una novela brillante, un tributo a las segundas oportunidades y al poder irrefrenable del amor.Nada hacía ...
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Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas HardyFar from the Madding Crowd, Hardy’s passionate tale of the beautiful, headstrong farmer Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors, firmly established the thirtyfouryearold writer as...
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Thomas Hardy
R. G. CoxThe Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling stu...
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David Copperfield
Charles DickensNow a major film directed by Armando Iannucci, starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton, Hugh Laurie, Peter Capaldi and Ben Whishaw'The greatest achievement of the greatest of all novelis...
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Thomas Hardy
Lascelles AbercrombieThis 1912 volume offers an examination of Hardy's works, including his novels, poetry and dramatic pieces.
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The Thomas Hardy Collection Volume One
Thomas HardyThree classics of the Victorian era from the great novelist. This volume includes three iconic novels by the author known for chronicling nineteenthcentury English society. ...
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Thomas Hardy
Tim ArmstrongIn Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems Tim Armstrong brings together over 180 poems in the first comprehensively annotated selection of Hardy’s poetry. Unlike most previous selections, th...
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Delphi Complete Works of Thomas Hardy
Thomas HardyOne of the few authors to distinguish himself with equal merit in poetry and novel writing, Thomas Hardy remains one of English literature's leading figures.? For the first time in...
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Thomas Hardy
J. B. BullenA study of the fictious world in Hardy’s novels in relation to real places and Hardy’s reallife experiences.Thomas Hardy’s Wessex is one of the great literary evocations of place, ...
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The Betrothed
Alessandro ManzoniSet in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the late 1620s, The Betrothed tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don...
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Poems of Thomas Hardy
Claire Tomalin & Thomas HardyThomas Hardy wrote some of the most moving and personal poems in his era and this collection brings together the best of his verse on life and love.Hardy's poems are by turn haunti...
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Ecclesiastical History of the English People
BEDE, Leo Sherley-Price & D. H. FarmerWritten in AD 731, Bede's work opens with a background sketch of Roman Britain's geography and history. It goes on to tell of the kings and bishops, monks and nuns who helped to de...
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The Short Stories Of Thomas Hardy
Thomas HardyThis is the annotated edition including a rare biographical essay on the life and works of the author. This compilation of Thomas Hardy's short stories is one of the most comp...
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Thomas Hardy
Martin RayThis is the definitive textual analysis of all of Hardy's collected short stories, tracing the development of each from manuscript, through newspaper serial versions, galley proofs...
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Thomas Hardy
Harold Hannyngton ChildThis 1916 volume examines the work of the English novelist and poet.
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Thomas Hardy Six Pack
Thomas HardyThomas Hardy (18401928) was born in Dorsetshire, England, the region that he later called Wessex in his novels. He trained as an architect and began to practice in 1867 but soon be...
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Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
Yiyun LiIn her first memoir, awardwinning novelist Yiyun Li offers a journey of recovery through literature: a letter from a writer to likeminded readers. “A meditation on the fact that li...
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Thomas Hardy
Thomas HardyThomas Hardy (1840–1928) was a major English poet and novelist; his works, often set in the fictional county of Wessex, are memorable for their realism and criticism of social cons...
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Works of Thomas Hardy
Thomas HardyThis collection was designed for optimal navigation on iPad and other electronic devices. It is indexed alphabetically, chronologically and by category, making it easier to access...
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Vertigo 42
Martha GrimesThe inimitable Richard Jury returns in the latest in the bestselling mystery series: “Martha Grimes has written a whodunit with terrific characters and a grand plot mixed with her ...
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Thomas Hardy
Julian WolfreysNo other major author of the nineteenth century has arguably produced as much critical activity as Thomas Hardy. This timely addition to the Critical Issues series explores the var...
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Far From the Madding Crowd
Thomas HardyThe novel that first brought Thomas Hardy real success, it is a loveletter to rural English life, unafraid to show both its hardships and its beauty.Bathsheba, the story’s heroine,...
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Thomas Hardy
Geoffrey HarveyThomas Hardy was the foremost novelist of his time, as well as an established poet. Author of Jude the Obscure and Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy reflected in his works the dyna...
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Thomas Hardy
Various AuthorsCe livre, qui est une sélection des communications faites au colloque Thomas Hardy organisé à Lyon les 2223 octobre 2010 par l'Université LumièreLyon 2 et l'ENSLSH, propose des ana...
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Thomas Hardy
Archie Stanton WhitfieldThis volume offers a lecture on Thomas Hardy delivered before La Société Internationale de Philologie, Science et BeauxArts, on April 11, 1921.
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Untouchable
Mulk Raj AnandMulk Raj Anand's extraordinarily powerful story of an Untouchable in India's caste system, with a new introduction by Ramachandra Guha, author of GandhiBakha is a proud and attract...
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Thomas Hardy
Annie MacdonnellThis 1894 volume offers an examination of Thomas Hardy's novels.
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Thomas Hardy
Andrew NormanThe first biography to explain the anguish of his personal life and how it influenced such masterpieces as Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d'Urbervilles Piercing the veil of...
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Thomas Hardy
Samuel Claggett ChewThis 1921 volume offers an examination of Hardy's poetry and novels.
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Thomas Hardy.
Victorian PoetryAt some indefinable point in recent decades a significant new movement occurred in Hardy criticism. For want of a better term I would like to call it a "focalization" change for, i...
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Thomas Hardy
Claire Tomalin"A masterful portrait" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) from a Whitbread Awardwinning biographer, and author of A Life of My Own. The novels of Thomas Hardy have a permanent...
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The Vineyard
María DueñasNew York Times bestselling author Maria Dueñas returns with The Vineyard, a magnificent story “destined to become a classic” (Armando Lucas Correa, bestselling author of The German...
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Thomas Hardy
Joelle HerrThomas Hardy was one of the greatest Victorian novelists and twentiethcentury poets, exploring themes of the human experience and challenging sexual and religious conventions in a ...
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Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen'Jane Austen is a genius, and Northanger Abbey is hugely underrated' Martin AmisWith its irrepressible heroine and playful literary games, Northanger Abbey is the most youthful and...
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Thomas Hardy
Mark FordBecause Thomas Hardy is so closely associated with the rural Wessex of his novels, stories, and poems, it is easy to forget that he was, in his own words, half a Londoner. Focusing...