Showing results by author "Thomas Hardy" in All Categories

Virginia Woolf once called Thomas Hardy "the greatest tragic writer among English novelists". His atmospheric novels were often considered shocking upon their publication. In this classic, Clym Yeobright returns to Egdon Heath from Paris, intending to settle down and improve the lives of his townspeople. But the alluring and mysterious Eustacia Vye has other plans. Like so many of Hardy’s masterpieces, The Return of the Native is both a rich character study and a critical examination of Victorian society.

"Jude the Obscure" is a tragic novel by Thomas Hardy that explores the struggles of a young man from a poor background who dreams of becoming an academic. Set in the late 19th century, the story takes a deep dive into societal constraints, morality, and relationships. With vivid descriptions and complex characters, this audiobook offers a compelling and thought-provoking experience.

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 near Dorchester in that part of England he called Wessex. With stories sometimes from his own imagination and sometimes from local tradition, Hardy's work, like Dickens and Trollope, creates a strong sense of mood and location. Hardy hoped to be remembered for his poetry, but ours is not a poetic age. Thus his claim to a new generation of readers rests on his prose. There are great similarities between his era, a time of challenge, and our own.

Cuando todos los dedos te señalan, rendirse no es una opción. Tess proviene de una familia de campesinos en el empobrecido Wessex. Un día recibe la noticia de que su apellido pertenece a una estirpe de nobles normandos. Al enterarse, sus padres la presionan para que se introduzca en los círculos aristócratas y obtener beneficio, algo a lo que Tess se niega. Pero el poder de la aristocracia caerá sobre ella con hostilidad y repugnancia y la sociedad no tardará en condenarla por el mero hecho de ser mujer.

Penguin Classics presents Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by the actor Steven Pacey. Do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called life - music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that is going on in the great arteries of the world? Tempestuous Eustacia Vye passes her days dreaming of passionate love and the escape it may bring from the small community of Egdon Heath.

A haunting collection of strange and macabre short stories, ideal for listening to around the fire on a cold winter evening.... 'The Last Leaf' by O. Henry, 'On the Northern Ice' by Elia W. Peattie, 'The Fire' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'The Tiger' by Hugh Walpole, 'Cool Air' by H. P. Lovecraft, 'The Missing Model' by Lettice Galbraith, 'The Cold Embrace' by Mary E. Braddon, 'The Snow' by Hugh Walpole, 'Over an Absinthe Bottle' by W. C. Morrow, 'The Coffin Merchant' by Richard Middleton.

Our Laodicean Paula Power, the daughter of a wealthy Victorian railway engineer, is the sole inheritor of the ancient De Stancy Castle. The castle requires much modernization and repair so she sets about securing a young, up-and-coming architect, George Somerset, to undertake the project. Immediately captivated Somerset falls in love with our heroine but alas, he is not her only suitor. Paula, "the modern flower in a mediaeval flower-pot" while attracted to him yearns for the dashing Captain De Stancy and the aristocratic background he represents.

Lonely Viviette Constantine awaits the return of her husband from a hunting expedition to Africa. She becomes involved with a young astronomer, Swithin St.Cleeve, who observes the night sky from a disused tower on her estate. Despite their differing ages and social backgrounds they soon find their destinies linked - but with fateful consequences.

Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy's second novel, was published in 1872 and became the first of his great series of Wessex novels. The book, subtitled A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, tells the endearing tale of a group of church musicians who accompany the hymns at the local Mellstock parish choir and we follow the fortunes of one of its member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day.

Fifty of the world's greatest classic short stories: 1.The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant 2.The One Million Pound Banknote by Mark Twain 3.The Phantom Rickshaw by Rudyard Kipling 4.The Fly by Katherine Mansfield 5.The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe 6.My Favorite Murder by Ambrose Bierce 7.The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe 8.One Thousand Dollars by O. Henry 9.Regret by Kate Chopin 10.The Nose by Nikolai Gogol 11.The Mezzotint by M. R. James 12.The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

The tale of spirited farmer Bathsheba Everdene and the three suitors who vie for her attention is the first of Hardy’s Wessex novels. Passion and tragedy abound against the backdrop of a 19th-century rural idyll, as Hardy sets the tone for his subsequent forays into the life and love stories of this fictional county.

Read the best mystery and adventure short stories. Be it cozy, historical, detective or murder mystery stories; our collection includes them all: The Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Arrow of Heaven by G. K. Chesterton, The Sign of the Broken Sword by G. K. Chesterton, The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe, The Master of Mystery by Jack London.

Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel. It centers on the lives of five characters: Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba Everdene, Mr. Boldwood, Sgt. Troy, and Fanny Robin. The plot involves love, loyalty, death, and betrayal, and all this is delivered to us in Hardy's most eloquent prose. The images of character and nature are painted for our mind's eye with sublime style.

Thomas Hardy wrote this engaging seasonal story for The Father Christmas Annual in 1877, which was very early in his career. One can just imagine the family sitting by the fireside after the big Christmas lunch, and listening as one member of the family read the story (set in the Wessex countryside he knew so well). By this time, he was already making his mark as a writer. One of his greatest achievements, Far From the Madding Crowd was published three years earlier.

Thomas Hardy brings us an England that once existed but no more. It is rural, traditional, pastoral - a society of mannered conduct that flows like a deep river where powerful currents eddy and swirl. In this powerful novel of love and disillusion, Hardy's heroine is torn between the three men in her life. Passionate but capricious, her romantic involvements have fascinated generations of readers.

In Tess Durbeyfield, Thomas Hardy created one of the most tragic heroines of English literature. Against the backdrop of a changing and haunting landscape, Tess battles for her freedom from penury and abuse. The story of her heroism and fortitude, as her destiny is relentlessly played out, is moving and unforgettable.

Simon Cliffe reads some of the greatest Christmas poems for the 12 days of Christmas. Day 1 - Merry Christmas by Louise May Alcott. Day 2 - Christ's Nativity by Henry Vaughan. Day 3 - Ceremonies for Christmas by Robert Herrick. Day 4 - New Prince, New Pomp by Robert Southwell. Day 5 - Christmas Cheer by Thomas Tusser. Day 6 - Ring Out, Wild Bells by Lor Alfred Tennyson. Day 7 - The Oxen by Thomas Hardy. Day 8 - Nativity by John Donne. Day 9 - A Christmas Carol by G.K. Chesterton.

"The Hand of Ethelberta" (1876) is a comedy novel by Thomas Hardy. Ethelberta was raised in humble circumstances but, through her work as a governess, married well at the age of eighteen. Her husband died two weeks after the wedding and, now twenty-one, Ethelberta lives with her mother-in-law, Lady Petherwin. In the three years that have elapsed since the deaths of both her husband and father-in-law, Ethelberta has been treated to foreign travel and further privilege by her benefactress, but restricted from seeing her poor family.

Eustacia Vye's great desire in life was to be loved to madness, and in this, one of Thomas Hardy's best-loved novels, one of his most superb female characters conducts her wild and lethal campaign against her rival - the innocent, rather conventional Thomas - against the backdrop of Egdon Heath, the equally wild and lethal Dorset moorland on which Hardy grew up.

Set in Egdon Heath, a wild tract of country in the southwest of England, this is a masterpiece of dramatic tension. Clym Yeobright, a diamond merchant in Paris, returns to his home in Egdon, where he falls passionately in love with the sensuous, free-spirited Eustacia Vye. She, while in a brief state of infatuation, marries him, hoping he will take her away to a more exciting life in Paris. But Eustacia's dreams of escape are not to be realized.