Description
Book SynopsisThomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 at Higher Bockhampton in Dorset. His father was a stonemason. Hardy attended school in Dorchester and then trained as an architect. In 1868 his work took him to St Juliot's church in Cornwall where he met his wife-to-be, Emma. His first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, was rejected by publishers but Desperate Remedies was published in 1871 and this was rapidly followed by Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). He also wrote many other novels, poems and short stories. Tess of the D'Urbervilles was published in 1891 and he published his final novel, Jude the Obscure, in 1895. Hardy was awarded the Order of Merit in 1910 and the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1912. Emma died in 1912 and Hardy married his second wife, Florence, in 1914. Thomas Hardy died on 11 January 1928.
Anne Michaels' Poems, published i
Trade Review
Thomas Hardy's thrilling story of seduction, murder, cruelty and betrayal * The Times *
Like the greatest characters in literature, Tess lives beyond the final pages of the book as a permanent citizen of the imagination... Tess is that rare creature in literature: goodness made interesting -- Irving Howe
Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles has a lush sensuality about the heat of summer and the heat of lust which makes the gorgeousness of Hardy's heroine and his country of Wessex both seems utterly desirable as the tale of tragic fate unfolds * The Times *
Hardy never used his "country" and his Greek ambitions to better effect -- Melvyn Bragg
Tess's beauty and the effect that it has on others gave me a sense of the destructive power of sex -- Rufus Wainwright
