The Mayor of Casterbridge- Thomas Hardy (BBC)Drunk on rum at a country fair, Henchard sells his wife and infant daughter to a sailor for five guineas. Unable to find them and overcome with guilt and remorse he vows to be teetotal for 21 years. Many years later his wife seeks him out in Casterbridge where he has gained both wealth and the well respected position of Mayor. His family restored to him, Henchard's happiness should be complete, but beneath the surface still smoulders the same impestousness and temper which combine with fate to bring about his degredation and ruin.
Tess O'Toole uncovers Hardy's career-long fascination with the points of intersection between genealogy and fiction and argues that this relationship fuels much of his writing. Hereditary patterns are the product of narrative compulsion; the circulation of the family story is necessary to reproduce the history it records. As well as analyzing Hardy's characteristic treatment of family history, this volume revises existing accounts of genealogical narrative, and in its conclusion considers the presence in other nineteenth- and twentieth-century novels of motifs foregrounded in Hardy's work.
Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas Hardy unabridged audiobook
unabridged and narrated by Anna Bentinck
Tess of the DUrbervilles tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, forced by her familys poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy DUrbervilles. Violated by the son, Alec, her hopes of rebuilding her life with the gentle and bookish Angel Clare founder when he learns of her past. Set among the lush pastures and bleak uplands of Hardys imagined Wessex, and filled with unforgettable images of tenderness and tragedy, the story examines conventional morality through Tess herself, one of the best-loved characters in English literature.
While exploring a cave, two boys divert the course of a stream and set off a strange chain of events. This was Thomas Hardy's one children's story, and the circumstances of its publication are at least as interesting as the story itself. Our Exploits at West Poley was written in 1883 for serial publication in the Youth's Companion and then, despite Hardy's amenability to cutting or other alteration ("possibly the story is too juvenile for your side of the sea")...
Through original essays from a distinguished team of international scholars and Hardy specialists, A Companion to Thomas Hardy provides a unique, one-volume resource, which encompasses all aspects of Hardy's major novels, short stories, and poetry
Informed by the latest in scholarly, critical, and theoretical debates from some of the world's leading Hardy scholars
Reveals groundbreaking insights through examinations of Hardy’s major novels, short stories, poetry, and drama
Explores Hardy's work in the context of the major intellectual and socio-cultural currents of his time and assesses his legacy for subsequent writers
