Thomas Hardy

Author profile

born

June 02, 1840 in Stinsford, Dorchester, Dorset, England, The United Kingdom

died

January 11, 1928

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Poetry

About this author

edit data

Thomas Hardy, OM, was an English author of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his facination with the supernatural. Though he regarded himself primarily as a poet and composed novels mainly for financial gain. The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the previously men...more

combine editions
Books by Thomas Hardy

Average rating: 3.70 · 118,366 ratings · 6,831 reviews · 256 distinct works

	Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, Margaret Randolph Higonnet (Introduction), Tim Dolin (Annotations) 3.60 avg rating — 48,782 ratings — published 1891 — 120 editions	My rating:
	Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, Rosemarie Morgan (Introduction and Notes), Shannon Russell (Introduction and Notes) 3.82 avg rating — 20,366 ratings — published 1874 — 242 editions	My rating:
	Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, Dover Thrift Editions 3.74 avg rating — 15,930 ratings — published 1895 — 70 editions	My rating:
	The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, Keith Wilson (Introduction and Notes) 3.70 avg rating — 11,540 ratings — published 1886 — 231 editions	My rating:
	The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, Alexander Theroux (Introduction) 3.75 avg rating — 7,599 ratings — published 1878 — 175 editions	My rating:
	The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy, Patricia Ingham (Introduction and Notes) 3.72 avg rating — 2,252 ratings — published 1887 — 39 editions	My rating:
	Under the Greenwood Tree 3.53 avg rating — 1,779 ratings — published 1872 — 84 editions	My rating:
	A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy, Alan Manford (Editor), Tim Dolin (Introduction) 3.61 avg rating — 1,218 ratings — published 1873 — 147 editions	My rating:
	Selected Poems by Thomas Hardy, Robert Mezey (Editor) 3.94 avg rating — 539 ratings — published 1940 — 40 editions	My rating:
	Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems by Thomas Hardy, James Gibson (Editor) 4.05 avg rating — 497 ratings — published 1978 — 18 editions	My rating:

More books by Thomas Hardy…

Quotes by Thomas Hardy

“A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.”
― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

tags: strength , woman

152 people liked it

“Happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain.”
― Thomas Hardy

133 people liked it

“People go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort.”
― Thomas Hardy

tags: marriage

96 people liked it

See all Thomas Hardy's quotes »

Polls

Classics came out on top as our genre for June. Vote for the book you would like to read next month. Last day to vote will be Saturday, May 12.

Frankenstein Mary Shelley

4 votes, 30.8%

Middlemarch George Eliot

4 votes, 30.8%

The Woman in White Wilkie Collins

3 votes, 23.1%

North and South Elizabeth Gaskell

1 vote, 7.7%

The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy

1 vote, 7.7%

Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy

0 votes, 0.0%

13 total votes

8 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Teens Read Book Club: April's Book Read	10	83	Apr 11, 2009 11:13pm
Victorians!: Thomas Hardy	77	98	Nov 20, 2009 06:48am
Book Haven: TBR Pile	72	148	Dec 17, 2009 12:08pm
The Next Best Boo...: End of the Year Summary	81	236	Dec 29, 2009 05:48pm
Romance Readers R...: February - Pick It For Me! Challenge	355	322	Apr 01, 2010 01:44pm
Glens Falls (NY) ...: Were you an avid reader as a child?	61	20	Apr 01, 2010 09:08pm
The Seasonal Read...: 30.6 (Donna Jo's Task - As Suggested By Liz Brooklyn - Character References)	117	266	May 11, 2010 02:21pm
The Seasonal Read...: Spring Challenge 2010 Completed Tasks	2750	2216	May 31, 2010 09:00pm
Romance Readers R...: May - Pick It For Me! Challenge	500	347	Jun 08, 2010 01:22pm

More…