Showing results by author "Thomas Hardy" in All Categories

This diverse, wide-ranging anthology features readings of 10 of the greatest books in the English language, taken from the BBC's Book at Bedtime and performed by a stellar cast of narrators. Here are nearly 27 hours of sensational stories, from iconic romances and humorous travelogues to pioneering Modernist masterpieces and compelling explorations of the human heart. Comprising much-loved favourites as well as neglected classics, this genre-spanning selection has something for everyone.

Life has the capacity of great moments and attainment, of lives well lived, fulfilling for ourselves and for those we touch. But for others life is arduous. There is no spark to ignite the curiosity, to explore and achieve a stability and a growth to their lives. Indeed their lives, in their own eyes, become almost meaningless, their sense of themselves subsumed under a myriad of problems, whether real or imagined. Seismic events in a life might crush them; the loss of a loved one for instance. Coping is difficult, support hard to find and isolation abounds.

A glittering collection of some of the world's finest short stories.

The story delicately balances the concerns of the Mellstock parish choir with a romance between Dick Dewy, a member of the choir, and Fancy Day, the village schoolmistress. While the choir battles for its survival against the new vicar's mechanical church organ, personal conflicts arise over the anachronistic customs of tradition.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Thomas Hardy, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and HP Lovecraft. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, as you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own.

A Group of Noble Dames is an 1891 collection of short stories by great English novelist Thomas Hardy. The ten stories focus on "store of ladies, whose bright eyes rain influence". Hardy delves into the hidden depths of country families to reveal what went on behind the scenes.

This selection of Hardy's poetry does full justice to its humanity, integrity, humour and evocative power, ranging from charming anthology pieces such as Weathers to the great love poems he wrote after the death of his first wife and his meditations on war and phillosophy.

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume Two is the second instalment of our wide-ranging classic collections. Volume Two features 13 essential classic novels from Jane Austen; Edith Wharton; Leo Tolstoy; D.H. Lawrence, and many more, alongside selected poetry from Christina Rossetti; Elizabeth Browning; and Emily Dickinson. Read by a cast of incredible narrators including Joanne Froggatt, Adjoa Andoh, Jonathan Keeble, and many more, this is your new go-to collection to catch up on those classics you've always wanted to hear.

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.

Set against the backdrop of peaceful southwest England, where Thomas Hardy spent much of his youth, The Mayor of Casterbridge captures the author's unique genius for depicting the absurdity underlying much of the sorrow and humor in our lives. Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife, Susan, and baby daughter.

Set in Hardy's Wessex, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging sub-title, "A Pure Woman", infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic. The novel tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of d'Urbeville.

In the midst of bombs and bullets, trenches and trauma, the soldiers of World War I, and those observing the horrors taking place from home, took pen to paper to record their experiences in verse. These poems - considered the greatest written during WWI and some of the greatest poetry of the twentieth century - show the horror of war but also shine a light on the strength of human courage, bravery, and virtue.

Thomas Hardy's sinister tale of jealousy, unrequited love and a mysterious and hideous curse. When Farmer Lodge brings his new wife home, nobody is more resentful and yet curious about her than his spurned former lover, Rhoda Brooke. But a terrifying and supernatural nightmare in which the two women fight, leaves strange and sinister marks on the young wife's arm. Over the weeks and months that follow, the arm begins to wither and wrinkle.

Gabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life and a loan, he has leased and stocked a sheep farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst. She comes to like him well enough and even saves his life once, but when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little.

Grace Melbury, the only daughter of a timber merchant, arrives home in Little Hintock after an expensive education, and her father looks to find a husband for her. There are two rivals for her hand: Giles Winterborne, a good-hearted yeoman and her childhood sweetheart; and Edred Fitzpiers, an ambitious young doctor of good family. Fitzpiers wins her, but the mismatch brings unhappiness not just to the young couple but to a wider circle in the woodland community.

A wonderfully evocative tale of the courtship of Fancy Day, newly arrived schoolmistress, by Dick Dewy, carrier of goods, during the four seasons of one year in Wessex. Most of Hardy’s work had tragedy woven into the narrative but ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ is full of whimsy and good humour. The story is not without its serious comment, however, as Hardy reflects on class division and the disappearance of heritage in the rural community.

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.

In this classically simple tale of the disastrous impact of outside life on a secluded community in Dorset, Hardy narrates the rivalry for the hand of Grace Melbury between a simple and loyal woodlander and an exotic and sophisticated outsider. Betrayal, adultery, disillusion, and moral compromise are all worked out in a setting evoked as both beautiful and treacherous.

Christmas brings out the best and the worst in us, as can been seen in this evocative anthology. Among what Thomas Love Peacock calls the "many poetical charms in the heraldings of Christmas," there are eulogies by saints and diatribes from curmudgeons. Here, Christmas is expounded by divines, sung by rustics, deplored by philosophers, made mystical in stories and summed up in a line by the poet Elizabeth Jennings: "The hush, the star, the baby, people being kind again."

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is an early exercise in girl power. Tess spends her life being bullied by men and is pushed to the brink. A dramatic and tragic story, a listener cannot fail to be moved by Tess' story, which is sadly surprisingly familiar to many modern women in the world today.