Hardy Women cover art

Hardy Women

Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Hardy Women

By: Paula Byrne
Narrated by: Dawn Murphy
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A Book of the Year in The Times, Guardian, Independent, New Statesman, Bookseller and at Waterstones

'He understands only the women he invents – the others not at all'

Thomas Hardy is one of the most beloved and most-read British authors. His influence on literature and the minds of his readers is singular. But how is it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women?

In this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines Hardy’s life through the eyes of the women who made him – mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. The story veers from shocking scenes such as his obsession with the sight of a woman hanged, to poignant vignettes of unfulfilled passion, to fascinating details of working women’s lives in the nineteenth century.

Hardy Women is the story of how the magnificent fictional women he invented would not have been possible without the hardship and hardiness of the real ones who shaped his passions and his imagination. It is only through understanding and witnessing these hardy women that we can truly enter the heart of this great novelist and poet.

©2024 Paula Byrne (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers Art & Literature Authors European Gender Studies Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences Women World Literature

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Thomas Hardy Collection: Six Novels cover art
The Trumpet-Major cover art
The Hand of Ethelberta cover art
Desperate Remedies cover art
Clarissa cover art
Virginia Woolf cover art
Confessions cover art
Lives of the Wives cover art
Wessex Tales cover art
Jane Austen at Home cover art
The Thomas Hardy BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
A Pair of Blue Eyes cover art
The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym cover art
Cold Comfort Farm cover art
Erotic Vagrancy cover art
A Pair of Blue Eyes cover art

Critic reviews

'By turns infuriating and inspiring, but always fascinating, this page-turner of a book offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of Victorian Britain’s most famous writers' Gareth Russell, author of The Palace

‘A fascinating re-examination of the life of Thomas Hardy through the eyes of the women who profoundly influenced him-his mother, his sisters, girlfriends, wives and muses. Drawing on access to some neverbefore-seen passages in Hardy's journals, she shows that it is through these hardy women that we can truly appreciate his much-loved works’ The Bookseller, Editor’s Choice
All stars
Most relevant  
I really enjoyed Wifedom about George Orwell so I was really looking forward to this for similar reasons - i did feel it would have been better as text than audio, because I actually restarted it and relistened to sections because I lost track at the start of who everyone was. The highlights were many, but the reason I’ve given four stars is that I feel it would have benefitted from a reshuffling in order or some other organisational change to make it more cohesive. It’s interesting that the two women he married were both writers and that they both “edited” his work - I suspect they might have more than a little contribution to the creative process! It’s also made me want to read more Hardy - I love Madding Crowd and Tess but had never been drawn to his other works. I’ve now downloaded Mayor of Casterbridge due to the insight from this book.

Such interesting insight

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
it was so clever to tell Hardy's story through his women. Paula Byrne wrote an intricate tale.

A fresh take on Thomas Hardy

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.