Thomas Hardy, página 2 de 27

Bathsheba Everdene is young, proud, and beautiful. She is an independent woman and can marry any man she chooses - if she chooses. In fact, she likes her independence, and she likes fighting her own battles in a man's world. But it is never wise to ignore the power of love. There are three men who would very much like to marry Bathsheba. When she falls in love with one of them, she soon wishes she had kept her independence. She learns that love brings misery, pain, and violent passions that can destroy lives . . .

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.

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled 'A Story of a Man of Character', Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels.

Thomas hardy`s last novel is focused on the themes of sex and marriage. The tragedy of jude`s struggle for happiness is intensified by the lack of opportunity for the ordinary man to improve his lot, despite the changes and developments of victorian society.

Jude Fawley, the stonemason excluded not by his wits but by poverty from the world of Christminster privilege, finds fulfilment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both have left earlier marriages. Ironically, when tragedy tests their union it is Sue, the modern emancipated woman, who proves unequal to the challenge. Hardy's fearless exploration of sexual and social relationships and his prophetic critique of marriage scandalised the late Victorian establishment and marked the end of his career as a novelist.

As Baptista travels home to marry her parents' old neighbour, she encounters her lost lover. They elope together, but tragedy strikes unexpectedly on their wedding day and she returns to her parents to do her duty. Will her other, brief love remain a secret? United by the theme of love, the writings in the Great Loves series span over two thousand years and vastly different worlds. Readers will be introduced to love's endlessly fascinating possibilities and extremities: romantic love, platonic love, erotic love, gay love, virginal love, adulterous love, parental love, filial love, nostalgic love, unrequited love, illicit love, not to mention lost love, twisted and obsessional love…

Classic / British English (Available May 2008) 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?

A tale of love and loss - the first of Thomas Hardy's novels to win him widespread recognition and popularity - reissued to accompany a major motion picture due for release in May 2015. 'I shall do one thing in this life - one thing certain - that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die' Independent and spirited, Bathsheba Everdene owns the hearts of three men. Striving to win her love in different ways, their relationships with Bathsheba complicate her life in bucolic Wessex - and cast shadows over their own. With the morals and expectations of rural society weighing heavily upon her, Bathsheba experiences the torture of unrequited love and betrayal, and discovers how random acts of chance and tragedy can dramatically alter life's course. The first of Hardy's novels to become a major literary success, Far from the Madding Crowd explores what it means to live and to love.

"Sobre el telón de fondo de los fascinantes paisajes de Endelstow se recortan tres figuras que van a protagonizar un dramático triángulo amoroso. Elfride, una joven de unos irresistibles ojo

«Tess dei D'Uberville non è generalmente una lettura scolastica, ma tanto per cambiare, si potrebbe anche adottarlo come testo scolastico giusto per avere una panoramica diversa dell'universo dei classici. E questo infatti è un libro che racchiude in se tutti gli elementi che ne fanno un bellissimo classico. Leggerlo è come vedere un film, perché l'autore non ha di certo lesinato le descrizioni dei personaggi con i loro lati un po' oscuri e ambivalenti, tanto che in certi punti non sappiamo se pensare che Tess in effetti è stata troppo ingenua o ha volutamente sbagliato o se il fantomatico cugino Alex sia veramente innamorato o semplicemente un seduttore, o se i genitori di Tess siano ingenui e disperati o approfittatori della disponibilit e del senso di colpa di Tess. Fa da sfondo uno spettacolare paesaggio agreste ben descritto e realistico, sembra quasi di vederlo e che sia un personaggio integrante del romanzo. Riguardo il finale penso che non poteva che finire nella tragedia e anzi da il grosso scossone finale al triangolo creato tra Tess, Alex e... Non voglio anticipare altro.»

Thomas Hardy, born 1840, went to the architects lesson to London and began his work apart as a church restorer to write. From 1871 Publications (Wessex novels). The author died in 1928; he left behind an extensive works - except for novels including almost 1,000 poems.

A new selection of Hardy's love poems. Thomas Hardy is one of the sacred figures in English writing, a novelist with a world reputation, but above all a great poet.

Set in the bleak, magical Wessex landscape so familiar from Hardy's early work, Tess's cruel story reveals circumstances slowly closing in on her as she attempts to grasp a few moments of hap

In this powerful depiction of a man who overreaches himself, hardy once again shows his acute psychological grasp and his deep-seated knowledge of mid-nineteenth-century dorset.

Jude Fawley, the stonemason excluded not by his wits but by poverty from the world of Christminster privilege, finds fulfilment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both have left earlier marriages. Ironically, when tragedy tests their union it is Sue, the modern emancipated woman, who proves unequal to the challenge. Hardy's fearless exploration of sexual and social relationships and his prophetic critique of marriage scandalised the late Victorian establishment and marked the end of his career as a novelist.

Thomas Hardy's novels are loved by millions of readers, but he was first and foremost a poet. He wrote around one thousand moving and deeply personal poems during his lifetime, tracing his experiences of life and love. This collection, selected and introduced by Claire Tomalin, Hardy's biographer, provides rich insight into Hardy's thoughts and emotions, and is central to the understanding of the man and his work. Divided into sections that move through the contours of Hardy's life - the English countryside in which he walked and the astonishing burst of creativity that followed the death of his estranged wife, Emma - this collection is essential for all those who love Hardy.