Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of novels, including FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1874), THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE (1886), TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES (1891) and JUDE THE OBSCURE (1895). However, beginning in the 1950s Hardy has been recognized as a major poet; he had a significant influence on the Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s.

Books by Thomas Hardy

Far From the Madding Crowd

by Thomas Hardy - Classics, Fiction

An immediate success when it was first published in 1874, Thomas Hardy's 'pastoral tale' of the willful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene, her three suitors --- the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, the lonely widower Farmer Boldwood, and the dashing but faithless Sergeant Troy --- and the tragic consequence of her eventual choice remains one of the most enduring and popular English novels.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

by Thomas Hardy - Fiction

The chance discovery by a young peasant woman that she is a descendant of the noble family of d'Urbervilles is to change the course of her life. Tess Durbeyfield leaves home on the first of her fateful journeys, and meets the ruthless Alec d'Urberville.