Showing results by author "Thomas Hardy" in All Categories

We begin with one of Hardy’s best regarded stories, 'The Fiddler of the Reels'. Here Hardy exposes a supernatural and demonic theme, against a realistic and historical background of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the first trains. A typical Wessex girl is gripped by the power of music and dance when a lone fiddler casts his spell on her, causing her cloying but plain suitor to leave suddenly for London.

This anthology looks back over some of the great love affairs of literary history. It includes readings of poetry, letters and scenes from fiction written by British poets and authors from Shakespearian times to the twentieth century. Here are real-life romantic couples, such as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats and Fanny Brawne, Lord Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning.

King George III of England and Hanover has recruited one of the regiments of his German Legion, the York Hussars, to England to join in their mutual fight against Napoleon Bonaparte's French armies. Stationed on the Dorset Downs, Corporal Matthäus Tina, of the York Hussars, aged 22, is beset by a melancholic homesickness for his native home town of Saarbrück, where his mother still lives.

In "The Hand of Ethelberta", Thomas Hardy explores the complexities of love and class in Victorian England through the story of a young woman who rises from being a governess to marrying into the aristocracy. With his signature wit and insight, Hardy delves into themes of social mobility, gender roles, and the power of love to transcend societal expectations. The audiobook brings this delightful tale to life, immersing the listener in the richly detailed world of 19th-century England.

Bathsheba Everdene flees her abusive husband and spends the night by a stagnant and spooky swamp. When light begins to break over her hiding-place, she sees strong parallels between her surroundings and the nature of her own experiences of relationships.

Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy's second novel, was published in 1872 and became the first of his great series of Wessex novels. The book, subtitled A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, tells the endearing tale of a group of church musicians who accompany the hymns at the local Mellstock parish choir and we follow the fortunes of one of its member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day.

Opera complessa e articolata, di grande intensità emotiva, “Tess dei d’Urberville”, dello scrittore e poeta inglese Thomas Hardy (1840/1928), all’epoca fu accusato di sfidare la morale vittoriana, suscitando aspre polemiche. Pubblicato a puntate nel 1891 sulla rivista The Graphic, fu censurato per essere poi ripubblicato in tre volumi nella versione integrale.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

Far from the Madding Crowd was Hardy's fourth novel, gaining significant popularity and critical attention. It tells of Gabriel, an up-and-coming shepherd, who falls in love with a proud and vain young beauty Bathsheba, who refuses his offer of marriage as she values her independence too much.

January - the first month of the year in the Gregorian calendar ushers in the New Year. the cold and bleak landscape of winter nevertheless provides a rich background for our esteemed poets, such as Byron, Longfellow, Cowper, and Dickinson, to offer us their reflections and counterpoints.

Included: The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry) The Fir Tree (Hans Christian Andersen) The Little Match Girl (Hans Christian Andersen) The Steadfast Tin Soldier (Hans Christian Andersen) The Holy Night (Selma Lagerlöf) Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe (Elizabeth Harrison) A Letter from Santa Claus (Mark Twain) Mary Returns The Doll The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter) Toinette and the Elves (Susan Coolidge) The Mistletoe Bough (Anthony Trollope) Not if I Know It (Anthony Trollope) The Two Generals (Anthony Trollope) Christmas Every Day (William Dean Howells) and more

In a fit of drunken bitterness, a young hay trusser, Michael Henchard, sells his wife, Susan, to Mr. Newson, a sailor, at a country fair. The transaction also includes their daughter, Elizabeth Jane. When sober the next day, he regrets his action but looks for them in vain and is eventually told they may have emigrated. Eighteen years later Henchard is the Mayor of Casterbridge, and the people of the town believe him to be a widower.

His last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure provoked such widespread and bitter attacks that Hardy claimed it caused him to stop writing novels. The primary causes of the uproar involved Hardy’s frank treatment of sexual themes and his unconventional portrayal of the pillars of Victorian society: the British university system, marriage, and religion. Today, many consider this to be Hardy’s finest work.

Adapted from the story by Thomas Hardy. A woman and a man... words of love whispered on a summer night. Later, there is a child, but no wedding-ring. And then the man leaves the first woman, finds a younger woman, marries her - it’s an old story. Yes, it’s an old, old story. It happens all the time – today, tomorrow, a hundred years ago. People don’t change. But this story, set among the green hills of southern England, has something different about it.

There are 11 short stories and a novella, The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid. Six of the stories were published before 1891, and, therefore, lacked international copyright protection when the collection began to be sold in October 1913.

collection of favorite classic poems by some of our best loved poets, including Robert Browning, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, John Keats, William Butler Yeats, Thomas Love Peacock, Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Shakespeare, Algernon Charles Swinburne, and others.

Read the best mystery and adventure short stories. Be it cozy, historical, detective or murder mystery stories; our collection includes them all: The Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Arthur Conan Doyle, The Arrow of Heaven by G. K. Chesterton, The Sign of the Broken Sword by G. K. Chesterton, The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe, The Master of Mystery by Jack London.

The Return of the Native (1878) is one of Hardy's most popular novels. Set on the brooding Egdon heath it traces the lives and loves of five people. Clym Yeobright, the native, returns to Egdon from a successful career in Paris to pursue a dream of educating the poorer local people. Eustacia Vye, a young woman unhappy with life on Egdon wishes for love and life in a city. Damon Wildeve, an innkeeper and ex-engineer is a young womaniser.

The most famous of Hardy's short stories from the collection Wessex Tales. 'The Withered Arm' blends suspense and gothic elements - and witchcraft - as well as troubled relationships between men and women.

A gripping collection of weird and fantastical stories of supernatural and unbelievable happenings. "Pomegranate Seed" by Edith Wharton; "The Tiger" by Hugh Walpole; "When I Was Dead" by Vincent O'Sullivan; "The Fire" by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne; "Satan's Circus" by Eleanor Smith; "The Coffin Merchant" by Richard Middleton; and more tall stories....