Thomas Hardy

TWO ON A TOWER (1882) is a tale of star-crossed love in which Hardy sets the emotional lives of his two lovers against the background of the stellar universe. 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. This is Hardy's most complete treatment of the theme of love across the class and age divide and the fullest expression of his fascination with science and astronomy.

Hardy's fourth novel, published in 1874 Madding Crowd became so successful that Hardy was able to give up architecture and devote himself to writing.

The passion, melodrama, earthy humour and strong, gripping plot of Thomas Hardy's novel Far from the Madding Crowd are vividly conveyed in Matthew White's fast-moving and admirably economical adaptation.3 women, 5 men

When Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure appeared in 1895, it immediately caused scandal and controversy. Its frank treatment of Jude's sexual relationships with Arabella and Sue, its scathing criticisms of late-Victorian hypocrisy, its depiction of the "New Woman," and its attacks on "holy wedlock" and religious bigotry outraged numerous reviewers; one called the book "Jude the Obscene." Others saw it as brilliantly progressive in its ideas and techniques. Vivid and complex, satiric and harrowing, this novel marked the culmination of Hardy's development as a leading novelist of the cultural transition from the Victorian to the Modernist era. The Broadview edition restores the original, controversial 1895 text.

Thomas Hardy's tragic vision of a love struggling to overcome prejudice and rejection, The Return of the Native is edited in Penguin Classics with an introduction by Penny Bouhmelha. Against the lowering background of Egdon Heath, fiery Eustacia Vye passes her days, wishing only for passionate love. She believes that her escape from Egdon lies in marriage to Clym Yeobright, home from Paris and discontented with his work there. But Clym wishes to return to the Egdon community; a desire which sets him in opposition to his wife and brings them both to despair. Based on the first edition of the text, this edition includes detailed notes of later revisions made by Hardy, glossary, bibliography and useful chronology of author's life. In her introduction Penny Bouhmelha identifies the literary and classical allusions in Hardy's text, in particular the parallels with Flaubert's Madame Bovary and with the Oedipus story. In so doing she demonstrates Hardy's claim for tragic status for ordinary human lives and the ways that the characters in the novel - especially the ill-fated lovers and Damon Wildeve - spoil their chances to master their own destinies. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), born Higher Brockhampton, near Dorchester, originally trained as an architect before earning his living as a writer. Though he saw himself primarily as a poet, Hardy was the author of some of the late eighteenth century's major novels: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Amidst the controversy caused by Jude the Obscure, he turned to the poetry he had been writing all his life. In the next thirty years he published over nine hundred poems and his epic drama in verse, The Dynasts. If you enjoyed The Return of the Native, you might like Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, also available in Penguin Classics.'The greatest tragic writer among the English novelists'Virginia Woolf

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.

Anne Garland, who lives with her widowed mother in a mill owned by Miller Loveday, has three suitors: the local squire's nephew Festus and the miller's two sons, Robert and John. While Festus' aggressive pursuit deters the young woman from considering him as a husband, the indecisive Anne wavers between light-hearted Bob and gentle, steadfast John. But as their Wessex village prepares for possible invasion by Napoleon's fleet, all find their destinies increasingly tangled with the events of history. The Loveday brothers, one a sailor and one a soldier, must wrestle with their commitments to their country and their feelings for Anne. Lyrical and light-hearted, yet shot through with irony, The Trumpet-Major (1880) is one of Hardy's most unusual novels and a fascinating tale of love and desire.

Both major novelist and major poet, with a distinctive off-beat and intensely personal style, Hardy is a modern writer born out of his time.

When Elfrise Swanston meets Stephen Smith she is attracted to his handsome face, gentle bearing and the sense of mystery which surrounds him. Although distressed to find that the mystery consists only in the humbleness of his origins, she remains true to their youthful vows. But societal pressures, and the advent of the superior Henry Knight, eventually displace her affections. Knight, however, proves to be an uncompromising moralist who, obsessed with fears about Elfride's sexual past, destroys her happiness. Writing of the struggle between classes and sexes, Hardy drew heavily on his own relationships, and in the introduction, Pamela Dalziel discovers fascinating parallels between Hardy's life and his art.

Hardy described Desperate Remedies as a tale of 'mystery, entanglement, surprise and moral obliquity'. Cytherea has taken a position as lady's maid to the eccentric arch-intriguer Miss Aldclyffe. On discovering that the man she loves, Edward Springrove, is already engaged to his cousin, Cytherea comes under the influence of Miss Aldclyffe's fascinating, manipulative steward Manston. Blackmail, murder and romance are among the ingredients of Hardy's first published novel, and in it he draws blithely on the 'sensation novel' perfected by Wilkie Collins. Several perceptive critics praised the author as a novelist with a future when Desperate Remedies appeared anonymously in 1871. In its depiction of country life and insight into psychology and sexuality it already bears the unmistakable imprint of Hardy's genius.

This critical edition of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles presents the classic novel aalongside critical essays which look at the work from five contemporary critical perspectives, introducting you to the novel and the perspectives within it.

When country-girl Grace Melbury returns home from her middle-class school she feels she has risen above her suitor, the simple woodsman Giles Winterborne. Though marriage had been discussed between her and Giles, Grace finds herself captivated by Dr Edred Fitzpiers, a sophisticated newcomer to the area - a relationship that is encouraged by her socially ambitious father. Hardy's novel of betrayal, disillusionment and moral compromise depicts a secluded community coming to terms with the disastrous impact of outside influences. And in his portrayal of Giles Winterborne, Hardy shows a man who responds deeply to the forces of the natural world, thought they ultimately betray him.

Hardy's two versions of a strange story set in the weird landscape of Portland. The central figure is a man obsessed both with the search for his ideal woman and with sculpting the perfect figure of Aphrodite.

Adventuress and opportunist, Ethelberta reinvents herself to disguise her humble origins, launching a brilliant career as a society poet in London with her family acting incognito as her servants. Turning the male-dominated literary world to her advantage, she happily exploits the attentions of four very different suitors. Will she bestow her hand upon the richest of them, or on the man she loves? Ethelberta Petherwin, alias Berta Chickerel, moves with easy grace between her multiple identities, cleverly managing a tissue of lies to aid her meteoric rise. In The Hand of Ethelberta (1876), Hardy drew on conventions of popular romances, illustrated weeklies, plays, fashion plates and even his wife's diary in this comic story of a woman in control of her destiny.

The daughter of a wealthy railway magnate, Paula Power inherits De Stancy Castle, an ancient castle in need of modernization. She commissions George Somerset, a young architect, to undertake the work. Somerset falls in love with Paula but she, the Laodicean of the title, is torn between his admiration and that of Captain De Stancy, whose old-world romanticism contrasts with Somerset's forward-looking attitude. Paula's vacillation, however, is not only romantic. Her ambiguity regarding religion, politics and social progress is a reflection of the author's own. This new Penguin Classics edition of Hardy's text contains an introduction and notes that illuminate and clarify these themes, and draws parallels between the text and the author's life and views.

Hardy described the theme of THE WOODLANDERS as 'the immortal puzzle -given the man and woman, how to find a basis for their sexual relation'. The Everyman edition is published to coincide with the launch of the Channel 4 Film starring Rufus Sewell, Polly Walker, Tony Haygarth and Emily Woolfe, directed by Phil Agland.

All the tragic majesty of Thomas Hardy's celebrated novel is captured in this arresting and theatrically exciting adaptation, narrated by a masked Chorus in the style of Greek tragedy (Hardy's favoured form of theatre) and using songs to counterpoint and underline the action. Michael Fry's adaptation provides a clear and thrilling experience and an enlightening and fascinating re-evaluation of a familiar text. Large flexible cast

Introduction and Notes by Dr Claire Seymour, University of Kent at Canterbury. The proverbial phrase 'life's little ironies' was coined by Hardy for his third volume of short stories. These tales and sketches possess all the power of his novels: the wealth of description, the realistic portrayal of the quaint lore of Wessex, the 'Chaucerian' humour and characterisation, the shrewd and critical psychology, the poignant estimate of human nature and the brooding sense of wonder at the essential mystery of life. The tales which make up Life's Little Ironies tenderly re-create a rapidly vanishing rural world and scrutinise the repressions of fin-de-siecle bourgeois life. They share the many concerns of Hardy's last great novels, such as the failure of modern marriage and the insidious effects of social ambition on the family and community life. Ranging widely in length and complexity, they are unified by Hardy's quintessential irony, which embraces both the farcical and the tragic aspects of human existence.

With an Introduction and Notes by Phillip Mallett, Senior Lecturer in English, University of St Andrews. Educated beyond her station, Grace Melbury returns to the woodland village of little Hintock and cannot marry her intended, Giles Winterborne. Her alternative choice proves disastrous, and in a moving tale that has vibrant characters, many humorous moments and genuine pathos coupled with tragic irony, Hardy eschews a happy ending. With characteristic derision, he exposes the cruel indifference of the archaic legal system off his day, and shows the tragic consequences of untimely adherence to futile social and religious proprieties