Selected Works

No library of classic fiction is complete without the works of Thomas Hardy, one of the nineteenth century's greatest writers. The hallmarks of his art are his finally etched and unforgettable characters, his magnificent depiction of nature, and his absorbing and twisting plots. Collected in this volume are two of Hardy's greatest novels - The Return of the Native and Tess of the D'urbervilles - and ten of his finest short stories.
The Return of the Native is considered by many to be Hardy's first great novel. The foreboding Egdon Heath - the countryside of Hardy's own Dorsetshire childhood- is the gloomy setting of this tragic story.The novel focuses on the mysterious and restless Eustacia Vye and her two lovers - the reckless Damon Wildeve an the romantic Clym Yeobright. Clym is the "native" of the title who has returned after years abroad. Eustacia, who desperately yearns to escape her lonely life on the moors, imagines him to be her savior, but when they try to establish a life together, a terrible fate intervenes,
In Tess of the D'urbervilles, Hardy created one of the finest tragic heroines as well as one of the most memorable love stories in English literature. Like The Return of the Native, the novel is set on the bleak English moors. It is the story of the beautiful and innocent sixteen-year-old Tess, who after being seduced by the wealthy libertine Alec D'urbeville, tries to start life over in another village. She meets the handsome Angel Clare and falls hopelessly in love, but with happiness within her grasp, the darker specter of her past returns. Despite her innate goodness and purity of soul, she is driven to fulfill the story's irrevocably heartbreaking climax.
Hardy's short stories echo the themes of his novels and exhibit the same bold narrative rhythm. Included here are ten of his best that range from humorous tales of rustic peasant life to ones of ill-fated lovers, betrayal and misunderstanding.
Thomas Hardy's artistry is Shakespearean in dimension and his popularity today remains undiminished. Although he drew upon the rural world of his youth and wrote about the people he knew best - the humble peasants of the heath - in exploring their lives he created tales of sweeping scope and power. Hardy's fictional world is a focused mirror to our own, where human desires and will are destined to tragically collide with an unforgiving universe ruled by implacable and unmoving fate.