Thomas Hardy

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swiftpassion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'The movements of his mind seemed to tend to the thought that some power was working against him.' When Henchard, an out-of-work hay-trusser gets drunk and sells his wife at a country fair, his life will never be the same. Eighteen years later, his wife and daughter return to Casterbridge to find that Henchard has become Mayor. Although he's spent most of his life attempting to repent for his actions, he remains a rash and impetuous man. Hardy portrays Henchard as a tragic hero, searching for love and acceptance from the community around him, posing the overarching question of whether we shape our own fate, or whether life deals us an inevitable hand.

HarperCollins is pround to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!' Challenging the hypocrisy and social conventions of the rural Victorian world, Tess of the D'Urbervilles follows the story of Tess Durbeyfield as she attempts to escape the poverty of her background, seeking wealth by claiming connection with the aristocratic D'Urberville family. It is through Tess's relationships with two very different men that Hardy tells the story of his tragic heroine, and exposes the double standards of the world that she inhabits with searing pathos and heart-rending sentiment.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.' Beautiful, impulsive and spirited, Bathsheba Everdene's fortunes are changed forever when she inherits her own farm and becomes a woman of independent means. Set in Hardy's evocative Wessex countryside, Bathsheba is pursued by three very different suitors. The reliable and humble Gabriel Oak, the vain and impetuous Troy and the reserved yet determined Boldwood. With the morals of rural society weighing heavily upon her, it is through these relationships that Bathsheba experiences the torture of unrequited love and betrayal and discovers how random acts of chance and tragedy can alter the pathway of a life dramatically.

The new graded readers series of original fiction, adapted fiction and factbooks especially written for teenagers. An adaptation of the classic story of Michael Henchard who rises above his poor and humble beginnings to become a successful businessman. But then, an awful secret from his past catches up with him and Henchard must pay the price. This is a British English version of the title. The book comes with a CD-ROM and Audio CDs with vocabulary games and a complete text recordings.

Gabriel Oak is an honest, hard-working young farmer, who falls in love with the beautiful and independent Bathsheba Everdene. After a tragic accident, Gabriel loses his farm. Bathsheba, on the other hand, becomes rich. Is there any hope for Gabriel?

Thomas Hardy started composing poetry in the heyday of Tennyson and Browning. He was still writing with unimpaired power sixty years later, when Eliot and Yeats were the leading names in the field. His extraordinary stamina and a consistent individuality of style and vision made him a survivor, immune to literary fashion. At the start of the twenty-first century his reputation stands higher than it ever did, even in his own lifetime. He is now recognised not only as a great poet, but as one who is widely loved. He speaks with directness, humanity and humour to scholarly or ordinary readers alike.

A pretty young girl has to leave home to make money for her family. She is clever and a good worker; but she is uneducated and does not know the cruel ways of the world. So, when a rich young man says he loves her, she is careful — but not careful enough. He is persuasive, and she is overwhelmed. It is not her fault, but the world says it is. Her young life is already stained by men's desires, and by death.

Michael Henchard is a wealthy and respected man, but he has a terrible secret. Twenty years ago, when he was unemployed and penniless, he sold his wife to a sailor. Now she is looking for him again. Why? And what will happen when she finds him?

Gabriel Oak is an honest, hard-working young farmer, who falls in love with the beautiful and independent Bathsheba Everdene. After a tragic accident, Gabriel loses his farm. Bathsheba, on the other hand, becomes rich. Is there any hope for Gabriel?

Michael Henchard is a wealthy and respected man, but he has a terrible secret. Twenty years ago, when he was unemployed and penniless, he sold his wife to a sailor. Now she is looking for him again. Why? And what will happen when she finds him?

When Tess Durbeyfield is sent by her family to seek out her rich relatives, she soon finds herself pursued and violently seduced by the ruthless Alex D'Urberville. The sad event which follows gives Tess the chance to hide her past and move on. Eventually she falls in love and finds happiness with Angel Clare, a clergyman's son. But Tess's honest nature means she is doomed to never escape her past as events force her to finally take control of her fate.

One of Hardy's greatest novels, Far from the Madding Crowd tells the story of the life and loves of the brave and the beautiful Bathsheba Everdene.

Издание полностью на английском языке. Полный, неадаптированный текст произведения.

This is a selection of the finest Hardy stories, including from Lifes Little Ironies The Sons Veto, A Tragedy of Two Ambitions, To Please His Wife and The Fiddler of the Reels; from Wessex Tales An Imaginative Woman, The Melancholy Hussar and The Distracted Preacher; and from A Group of Noble Dames The First Countess of Wessex. Hardys wonderfully evocative tales tell of a rural world that is lost, but whose verities still engage the reader today.

The Durbeyfield family are poor and simple people, but their ancestors were the mighty d’Urbervilles, an ancient and noble family. When the Durbeyfields meet with misfortune, they send their eldest daughter Tess to visit her wealthy cousin and ask for help, but the wealthy cousin has a young son, Alec Stoke-d’Urberville, who finds Tess very attractive…

»The Well-Beloved» completes the cycle of Hardy's great novels, reiterating his favourite themes of man's eternal quest for perfection in both love and art, and the suffering that ensues. Jocelyn Pierston, celebrated sculptor, tries to create an image of his ideal woman — his imaginary «Well-Beloved» — in stone, just as he tries to find her in the flesh. Powerful symbolism marks this romantic fantasy that Hardy has grounded firmly in reality with a characteristically authentic rendering of location, the Isle of Slingers, or Portland as we know it. Overt exploration of the relationship between erotic fascination and creativity makes this novel a nineteenth-century landmark in the persistent debate about art, aesthetics and gender.

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.

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.

Jude Fawley is a rural stone mason with intellectual aspirations. Frustrated by poverty and the indifference of the academic institutions at the University of Christminster, his only chance of fulfilment seems to lie in his relationship with his unconventional cousin, Sue Bridehead. But life as social outcasts proves undermining, and when tragedy occurs, Sue has no resilience and Jude is left in despair.

A Pair of Blue Eyes is celebrated for its central scene which shocked and stimulated Victorian readers. Forever after it caused Hardy to be embroiled in arguments concerning the sexual morality of his novels in which he strove to show the stifling effects of social conventions on the human spirit. Rich with biographical echoes, this novel reveals the full emergence of the schematic ironies which characterize Hardy's later great works, and gives a suggestion of the tragic philosophy that came to dominate all he wrote. The loving nature of the heroine, Elfride Swancourt, pervades this novel, which has a singular unpolished charm.

The central figure of this novel is the returning «native», Clym Yeobright, and his love for the beautiful but capricious Eustacia Vye. As character after character is driven to self-destruction, the presence of Egdon Heath becomes all-embracing, while Clym becomes a preacher.

Thomas Hardy's only historical novel, «The Trumpet Major» is set in Wessex during the Napoleonic Wars. Hardy skilfully immerses us in the life of the day, making us feel the impact of historical events on the immemorial local way of life — the glamour of the coming of George III and his soldiery, fears of the press-gang and invasion, and the effect of distant but momentous events like the Battle of Trafalgar. He interweaves a compelling, bitter-sweet romantic love story of the rivalry of two brothers for the hand of the heroine Anne Garland, played out against the loves of a lively gallery of other characters. While there are elements of sadness and even tragedy, «The Trumpet-Major» shows Hardy's skills of story-telling, characterisation and description in a novel of vitality, comedy and warmth.

»Wessex Tales» was the first collection of Hardy's short stories, and they reflect the experience of a novelist at the height of his powers. These seven tales, in which characters and scenes are imbued with a haunting realism, show considerable diversity of content, form and style, and range from fantasy to realism and from tragedy to comedy.