Audiobooks by "Thomas Hardy", page 2

Like all of Hardy's work, The Return of the Native (1878) is passionate and controversial, with themes and sympathies beyond what a good Victorian would ever admit. A modern and honest novel of chance and choice, faith and infidelities, this dark story asks what is free will a...

Far From The Madding Crowd is Hardy's fourth novel. It centres on the lives of five characters: Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba Everdene, Mr Boldwood, Sgt. Troy and Fanny Robin. The plot involves love, loyalty, death and betrayal and all this is delivered to us in Hardy's most eloquent...

The plot concerns two – literally starcrossed – lovers: Swithin St. Cleeve, a very young amateur astronomer, and Viviette Constantine, an unhappily married and abandoned woman 8 or 9 years his senior. Each night Swithin climbs the old tower of the title, in the grounds of the ...

The story takes place in a small woodland village called Little Hintock, and concerns the efforts of an honest woodsman, Giles Winterborne, to marry his childhood sweetheart, Grace Melbury. Although they have been informally betrothed for some time, her father has made financial ...

The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) is a tragic novel by English author Thomas Hardy subtitled, "The Life and Death of a Man of Character". It is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge (based on the town of Dorchester in Dorset). The book is one of Hardy's Wessex novels, all s...

The book describes the love triangle between a young woman, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors from very different backgrounds. Stephen Smith is a socially inferior but ambitious young man who adores her and with whom she shares a country background. Henry Knight is the re...

Ethelberta was raised in humble circumstances but became a governess and consequently, at the age of 18, married well. However, her husband died two weeks after the wedding. Her father-in-law, Lord Petherwin, died shortly afterwards. Ethelberta (now 21) lives with her mother-in-l...

Wessex Tales is a collection of six short stories written by Hardy in the 1880’s. If you’ve never read Hardy they’ll serve as a good introduction to his writing. Though not as comprehensive as his major works they do contain all the ingredients that make him instantly recognisabl...

"Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented" is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1891. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper, The Graphic. Though now considered an important work of...

Cytherea Graye is poor, but accepts a post as lady's maid to the eccentric Miss Aldclyffe, the woman whom her father had loved but had not been able to marry. Cytherea in turn loves a young architect, Edward Springrove; but will Miss Adclyffe's machinations, the knowledge that Ed...

One of the greatest English tragic novels, TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES (1891) is the story of a “pure woman” who is victimized both by conventional morality and its antithesis. Born near Dorchester, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) set most of his stories in the region between Berkshire an...

The Woodlanders is one of Hardy's later novels, although he originally intended it as a successor to Far From The Madding Crowd. It concerns the life and loves of Giles Winterborne, Grace Melbury, Edred Fitzpiers, Felice Charmond and Marty South. The topics of class, fidelity ...