New Releases by Thomas Hardy

Classic edition of Thomas Hardy''s impassioned novel of courtship in rural life. In Thomas Hardy''s first major literary success, independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy, and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. One of his first works set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, Hardy''s novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. This edition, based on Hardy''s original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candor and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan''s introduction discusses the history of its publication, as well as the biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel. Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC''s survey The Big Read.

Classic edition of Thomas Hardy''s impassioned novel of courtship in rural life. In Thomas Hardy''s first major literary success, independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy, and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. One of his first works set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, Hardy''s novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. This edition, based on Hardy''s original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candor and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan''s introduction discusses the history of its publication, as well as the biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel. Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC''s survey The Big Read.

Classic edition of Thomas Hardy''s impassioned novel of courtship in rural life. In Thomas Hardy''s first major literary success, independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy, and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. One of his first works set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, Hardy''s novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. This edition, based on Hardy''s original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candor and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan''s introduction discusses the history of its publication, as well as the biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel. Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC''s survey The Big Read.

This edition, based on Hardy''s original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candor and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan''s introduction discusses the history of its publication, as well as the biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel. Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC''s survey The Big Read.

This edition, based on Hardy''s original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candor and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan''s introduction discusses the history of its publication, as well as the biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel. Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC''s survey The Big Read.

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) is Thomas Hardy''s fourth novel and his first major literary success. It originally appeared anonymously as a monthly serial in Cornhill Magazine, where it gained a wide readership.The novel is the first to be set in Hardy''s fictional region of Wessex in rural south west England. It deals in themes of love, honour and betrayal, against a backdrop of the seemingly idyllic, but often harsh, realities of a farming community in Victorian England. It describes the farmer Bathsheba Everdene, her life and relationships-especially with her lonely neighbour William Boldwood, the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, and the thriftless soldier Sergeant Troy.On publication, critical notices were plentiful and mostly positive. Hardy revised the text extensively for the 1895 edition and made further changes for the 1901 edition.[1]The novel was listed at number 48 on the BBC''s survey The Big Read in 2003. The book finished 10th on The Guardian''s list of greatest love stories of all time in 2007.The novel has been dramatised several times, notably in the Oscar-nominated 1967 film directed by John Schlesinger.

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy 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.

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Thomas Hardy’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Hardy includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Hardy’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Return of the Native’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Thomas Hardy’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Hardy includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘The Return of the Native’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Hardy’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

Elfride finds herself caught in a battle between her heart, her mind and the expectations of her parents and society. The novel is notable for the strong parallels to Hardy and his first wife Emma Gifford. When Elfride''s father finds that his guest and candidate for his daughter''s hand, architect''s assistant Stephen Smith, is the son of a mason, he immediately orders him to leave. This was the third of Hardy''s novels to be published and the first to bear his name.

Tess of the d''Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891 and in book form in 1892. Though now considered a major nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardy''s fictional masterpiece, Tess of the d''Urbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.The novel is set in impoverished rural England, Thomas Hardy''s fictional Wessex, during the Long Depression of the 1870s. Tess is the oldest child of John and Joan Durbeyfield, uneducated peasants; however, John is given the impression by Parson Tringham that he may have noble blood, since "Durbeyfield" is a corruption of "D''Urberville", the surname of a noble Norman family, then extinct. The news immediately goes to John''s head.

Far from the Madding Crowd was the first of Hardy''s novels to apply the name of Wessex to the landscape of south-west England, and the first to gain him widespread popularity as a novelist. When the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene inherits her own farm, she attracts three very different suitors; the seemingly commonplace man-of-the-soil Gabriel Oak, the dashing young soldier Francis Troy, and the respectable, middle-aged Farmer Boldwood. Her choice, and the tragedy it provokes, lie at the centre of Hardy''s ambivalent story.

The unhappily married Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with Swithin St. Cleeve, an astronomer who is ten years her junior. Her husband''s death leaves the lovers free to marry, but the discovery of a legacy forces them apart.

The arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love affair in its wake. While the Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the village''s musicians with his decision to abolish the church''s traditional ''string choir'' and replace it with a modern mechanical organ, the new schoolteacher, Fancy Day, causes an upheaval of a more romantic nature, winning the hearts of three very different men - a local farmer, a church musician and Maybold himself. Under the Greenwood Tree follows the ensuing maze of intrigue and passion with gentle humour and sympathy, deftly evoking the richness of village life, yet tinged with melancholy for a rural world that Hardy saw fast disappearing.

Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family''s fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d''Urbervilles. But Alec d''Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice.Hardy''s indictment of society''s double standards, and his depiction of Tess as "a pure woman," caused controversy in his day and has held the imagination of readers ever since. Hardy thought it his finest novel, and Tess the most deeply felt character he ever created.

Hardy''s masterpiece traces a poor stonemason''s ill-fated romance with his free-spirited cousin. No Victorian institution is spared - marriage, religion, education - and the outrage following publication led the embittered author to renounce fiction. Modern critics hail this novel as a pioneering work of feminism and socialist thought.

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 Elfride faces an agonizing choice. Written at a crucial time in Hardy''s life, A Pair of Blue Eyes expresses more directly than any of his novels the events and social forces that made him the writer he was. 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.[page needed] 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.

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, 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. Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872. It was Hardy''s second published novel, the last to be printed without his name, and the first of his great series of Wessex novels. Whilst Hardy originally thought of simply calling it The Mellstock Quire, he settled on a title taken from a song in Shakespeare''s As You Like It .The plot concerns the activities of a group of church musicians, the Mellstock parish choir, one of whom, Dick Dewy, becomes romantically entangled with a comely new school mistress, Fancy Day. The novel opens with the fiddlers and singers of the choir-including Dick, his father Reuben Dewy, and grandfather William Dewy-making the rounds in Mellstock village on Christmas Eve. When the little band plays at the schoolhouse, young Dick falls for Fancy at first sight. Dick, smitten, seeks to insinuate himself into her life and affections, but Fancy''s beauty has gained her other suitors, including a rich farmer and the new vicar at the parish church. The vicar, Mr. Maybold, informs the choir that he intends Fancy, an accomplished organ player, to replace their traditional musical accompaniment to Sunday services. The tranter and the rest of the band visit the vicar''s home to negotiate, but reluctantly give way to the more modern organ. Meanwhile, Dick seems to win Fancy''s heart, and she discovers an effective strategem to overcome her father''s objection to the potential marriage. After the two are engaged secretly, however, vicar Maybold impetuously asks Fancy to marry him and lead a life of relative affluence; racked by guilt and temptation, she accepts. The next day, however, at a chance meeting with the as-yet-unaware Dick, surprised Maybold learns from him of his engagement to Fancy. The vicar follows by prompting her by letter, while expressing being taken aback by such news, to be honest to Dewy and withdraw her commitment to him if she indeed intended to become married to Maybold. Fancy responds by withdrawing her consent to marry Maybold and asking him to keep her initial acceptance of his proposal forever a secret. Maybold replies by urging her again to be honest with Dick and admit she accepted the vicar despite having already committed herself to the young tranter, assuring her she would be forgiven. However, as she marries Dewy who is so in love he readily dismisses what he previously (rightly) considered exhibits of her fickleness and rejoices at what he perceives at the prospect of a happy union based on honesty, given Fancy''s effusive and seemingly frank admission to some (minor) infidelities, while he assumes they would never keep any secrets from each other, she resolves never to disclose the truly incontrovertible and damning evidence against her character in her having so readily accepted Maybold despite her engagement to Dewy. The novel ends with a humorous portrait of Reuben, William, Mr. Day, and the rest of the Mellstock rustics as they celebrate the couple''s wedding day. The mood is joyful, but at the end of the final chapter, the reader is reminded that Fancy has married with "a secret she would never tell" (her final flirtation and brief engagement to the vicar). While Under the Greenwood Tree is often seen as Hardy''s gentlest and most pastoral novel, this final touch introduces a faint note of melancholy to the conclusion......

Hardy''s classic novel follows Bathsheba Everdene, a young woman with plenty of men trying to marry her. But she has a small problem: she doesn''t love them. It''s the story of love and scandal just as relevant today as it was over a hundred years ago. Far from the Madding Crowd has long been considered one of Hardy''s most successful and thematic works. This edition is annotated with a short biography about the life and times of Thomas Hardy. It also includes a plot summary.

Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the creeping hours of time, was known only to those who watched the circumstances of her history. Personally, she was the combination of very interesting particulars, whose rarity, however, lay in the combination itself rather than in the individual elements combined. As a matter of fact, you did not see the form and substance of her features when conversing with her; and this charming power of preventing a material study of her lineaments by an interlocutor, originated not in the cloaking effect of a well-formed manner (for her manner was childish and scarcely formed), but in the attractive crudeness of the remarks themselves. She had lived all her life in retirement-the monstrari gigito of idle men had not flattered her, and at the age of nineteen or twenty she was no further on in social consciousness than an urban young lady of fifteen.

This classic novel tells the story of how the poor rural couple John and Joan Durbeyfield become convinced that they are descended from the ancient family of d’Urbervilles. They encourage their innocent daughter Tess to cement a connection with the d’Urberville family, including their unprincipled son Alec, with tragic consequences. “A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented,” as Hardy subtitled the novel, represented a direct challenge to conventional Victorian notions of sexuality and femininity. This is a revised, updated, and expanded Broadview edition that highlights a feminist interpretation of the novel in an extensive introduction. The range of historical appendices (including contemporary articles, letters, maps, news stories, and reviews) will greatly enhance a reader’s understanding of the text.

Bathsheeba Everdene (the only girl in this, ahm, m nage quatre) has three suitors she must choose among: Gabriel Oak; wealthy, temperate, and middle-aged Farmer Boldwood; and Sergeant Francis Troy. And you know she picks the wrong one, don''t you? -- This is a Thomas Hardy novel, for God''s sake; things never work out right for anybody. But all the same, there''s a lot to be learned from the way fate finds the characters . . .

Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with the beautiful youth Swithin St Cleeve, her social inferior and ten years her junior. The tower in question is a monument converted into an astronomical observatory where together the lovers ''sweep the heavens''. Science and romance are destined to collide, however, as work, ambition and the pressures of the outside world intrude upon the pair. In what Sally Shuttleworth calls ''a drama of oppositions and conflicts'', Hardy''s story sets male desire against female constancy, and ''describes an arc across the horizon of late nineteenth-century social and cultural concerns: sexuality, class, history, science and religion''.

The four seasons of the Wessex year form the backdrop for the delightful romance of Dick Dewy and Fancy Day. The ups and downs of their courtship are set alongside the story of the rustics who form the church choir.

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 tragic destiny than Hardy. With the innocent and powerless victim Tess, he creates profound sympathy for human frailty while passionately indicting the injustices of Victorian society. Scorned by outraged readers upon its publication in 1891, Tess of the d''Urbervilles is today one of the enduring classics of nineteenth-century literature.