When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a...more
Hardy's novel begins with the famous scene in which Michael Henchard, a young farmer, gets drunk at a village fair and sells his wife and baby daughter to a passing sailor for five guineas. The consequences of this impulsive act are regrettable and far-reaching, and culminate in Henchard's ruin and his death in obscurity as a lonely old man. Hencha...more
After an unfortunate marriage to Sergeant Troy and an affair with Farmer Boldwood, Bathsheba Everdene finally becomes the wife of the man who has always loved her, in an authoritative edition of the uncensored 1912 text. Reprint.
Only after Hardy's death did his poetry begin to receive the acclaim it demands. Experimenting vigorously with rhythm, stress and verse forms, Hardy colors the depths of his thematic efforts with technical vibrancy. Whether dwelling on personal grief or tender domestic dramas, his genius for rhetorical ambiguity continues to challenge cri...more
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Because of its sexual frankness and indictment of Victorian hypocrisy, Hardy's novel was considered shocking when it was published in 1891. It is the tale of Tess Durbeyfield, a young country girl whose rape by Alec D'Urberville, a distant aristocratic relative, leads to pregnancy. Tess's baby dies, and she finds work as a dairymaid at a farm where...more
In THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE, the story turns on that staple of Victorian literature, a love triangle. Clym Yeobright, the "native" of the title, returns to the countryside where he was born--much as Hardy himself, after a stint in London, returned to his native Dorsetshire to write. Clym falls in love with his cousin, the beautiful but cold Eustaci...more
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