Selected Stories of Thomas Hardy

by Thomas Hardy

Selected Short Stories: Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 near Dorchester in that part of England he called Wessex. With stories sometimes from his own imagination and sometimes from local tradition, Hardy's work, like Dickens and Trollope, creates a strong sense of mood and location. Hardy hoped to be remembered for his poetry, but ours is not a poetic age. Thus his claim to a new generation of listeners rests on his prose. There are great similarities between his era, a time of challenge, and our own. This collection of short stories shows Hardy at his best and includes: "The Three Strangers," "The Withered Arm," "The Fiddler of the Reels," "Barbara of the House of Grebe" and "The Distracted Preacher."

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Collections

217 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1996

About the author

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 fascination with the supernatural. 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 novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[David Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having browsed through several of Hardy's novels before deciding 300 pages or so of 19th century English rural life seemed a bit much, it was a turn of luck to discover this selection of his short stories. With its more manageable chunks of Hardy it turned out to be a really enjoyable read. The seasons and rhythms of life are deftly portrayed and nature is brought to life but never over-described. The characters who interact and go about their business under the skies and sunsets and among the natural and manmade features Hardy constructs are also memorable. Many facets of English small town life appear, from rural folklore to smuggling, hangings and more. Far from the ponderous vibe I picked up from perusing his novels, the stories are often fast-paced (especially the one involving smuggling, originally written for a magazine that clearly demanded action).
Five stars - four for the great tales from Mr Hardy and another one for Oxford professor John Wain's deft selection of seven fabulous pieces from the wider body of Hardy's short stories and his insightful introduction that really gets to why Hardy wrote the way he did.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of a cheat for me with this one as the four best stories are from the original Wessex Tales. The other four are definitely worth the read but are not in the same class. I liked John Wain and I hope Macmillan paid him handsomely for his choices. I would have stuck with Hardy’s own selections. Maybe there was a rights issue?

[Twig · Rating 3 out of 5]

more a 3.5

[Susan Lyons · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quite enjoyable selection of Hardys stories.

[David Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

only read 1 so far - but everything i remember from earlier hardy reading

graphic, colourful, depth and personality - all rolled into a very short treatise - great