Showing results by author "Thomas Hardy" in All Categories

Simon Cliffe reads some of the greatest Christmas poems for the 12 days of Christmas. Day 1 - Merry Christmas by Louise May Alcott. Day 2 - Christ's Nativity by Henry Vaughan. Day 3 - Ceremonies for Christmas by Robert Herrick. Day 4 - New Prince, New Pomp by Robert Southwell. Day 5 - Christmas Cheer by Thomas Tusser. Day 6 - Ring Out, Wild Bells by Lor Alfred Tennyson. Day 7 - The Oxen by Thomas Hardy. Day 8 - Nativity by John Donne. Day 9 - A Christmas Carol by G.K. Chesterton.

Distinguished actor and six-time Academy Award nominee Richard Burton reads a selection of his favourite poetry. Volume 2 in this dramatic audiobook series includes selections from William Shakespeare, John Donne, and Thomas Hardy....

John Durbeyfield (Keith Barron) learns that he is descended from the aristocratic Norman family of d'Urbervilles. He encourages his daughter, Tess (Claire Rushbrook), to befriend the family of Stoke d'Urbervilles where she meets Alec d'Urberville (Adam Godley). Tess is ultimately seduced by Alec and the effects of their affair creates dramatic ripples in Tess's life. In an attempt to make a fresh start, Tess begins work in Wessex at the Talbothay's farm where she encounters Angel Clare (James D'Arcy), the younger son of a parson, who asks her to marry him.

One of Jude Fawley's ambitions in life is a university education, but his dreams come crashing down around him when he is forced into marriage with Arabella. The marriage doesn't last long before his new bride abandons him for a different life. Left with nothing more than his broken dreams, Jude moves to the city of Christminster, where he finds work as a stonemason.

Death is a subject that few of us talk about, but many think about and more than a few of us dread. Whether it is the actual end of our life’s journey or merely a transit point to heavenly glory, its actual point of impact is, obviously, life-changing. But what do poets think of it? How do their minds tangle with the subject and make sense of this? That’s what we wondered too. Poets as rich and diverse as Tennyson, Hardy, Shelley, and Poe here share their words, thoughts and visions with us.

A very early novel by Thomas Hardy—beautifully written but obviously written when he was a young man who was curious about why women fall in love and why men feel so mesmerized by them. It really is a charming story and like the more famous stories, it is set in the idyllic countryside of West England. The descriptions of the landscape are very affecting.

November - the 11th month of the year in the Gregorian calendar, when the land becomes bleaker, harsher but no less beautiful for that. For our poets, including Hood, Arnold, Melville, Alford, and Hardy, there is much to write and comment on.

The Return of the Native (1878) is one of Hardy's most popular novels. Set on the brooding Egdon heath it traces the lives and loves of five people. Clym Yeobright, the native, returns to Egdon from a successful career in Paris to pursue a dream of educating the poorer local people. Eustacia Vye, a young woman unhappy with life on Egdon wishes for love and life in a city. Damon Wildeve, an innkeeper and ex-engineer is a young womaniser.

A Group of Noble Dames is an 1891 collection of short stories by great English novelist Thomas Hardy. The ten stories focus on "store of ladies, whose bright eyes rain influence". Hardy delves into the hidden depths of country families to reveal what went on behind the scenes.

Victoria’s reign was long and presided over the restless expansion of the British Empire and reams of creative genius. Within these volumes we can bring only a glimpse of the richness, beauty and words of the poets and their musings on this remarkable age. Many are world-renowned - Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Kipling, Austin, Hopkins, Hardy and Swinburne. Some are almost forgotten - Patmore, Newbolt, Synge. And some are barely noted - Lyall, Meynell and Merdeith. But together they encompass a great poetical age.

"The Well-Beloved" (1897) is A Sketch of a Temperament by Thomas Hardy. The novel tells the story of a sculptor's search for the ideal woman, through three generations of a Portland family. From the Preface: "The peninsula, whereon most of the following scenes are laid, has been for centuries immemorial the home of a curious and well-nigh distinct people, cherishing strange beliefs and singular customs, now for the most part obsolescent. Fancies, like certain soft-wooded plants which cannot bear the silent inland frosts, but thrive by the sea in the roughest of weather, seem to grow up naturally here."

Michael Redgrave presents one of Thomas Hardy's most popular novels, which takes place entirely in the environs of Egdon Heath and covers exactly a year and a day.

On a dark and stormy night, three strangers seek shelter at a young girl's christening party. Thomas Hardy was an English poet, novelist, and short story writer. He is famous for his depictions of Wessex, an imaginary county. Many of his stories also reflected his sense of the tragedy in human life.

A wonderfully evocative tale of the courtship of Fancy Day, newly arrived schoolmistress, by Dick Dewy, carrier of goods, during the four seasons of one year in Wessex. Most of Hardy’s work had tragedy woven into the narrative but ‘Under the Greenwood Tree’ is full of whimsy and good humour. The story is not without its serious comment, however, as Hardy reflects on class division and the disappearance of heritage in the rural community.

Under the Greenwood Tree, Hardy's second novel, was published in 1872 and became the first of his great series of Wessex novels. The book, subtitled A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, tells the endearing tale of a group of church musicians who accompany the hymns at the local Mellstock parish choir and we follow the fortunes of one of its member, Dick Dewy, who falls in love with the new school mistress, Fancy Day.

Thomas Hardy, never one to be conventional, took a very unconventional moral stance in this novel, which shocked readers of the time. In doing so, he created one of the great romantic novels of all time, the story of a striking and tragic heroine who came to life for the reader as she did for the author.

Evil is unleashed in Scare Street’s latest bone-chilling collection of supernatural horror. Fourteen tales of terror lurk within this new volume - more than enough to give even the bravest soul a reason to fear the night. As your eyes flutter open, you can still see dark images in your mind.... Horrifying monsters, demons, and ghouls with a hunger for human flesh.

A pretty young girl has to leave home to make money for her family. She is clever and a good worker; but she is uneducated and does not know the cruel ways of the world. So, when a rich young man says he loves her, she is careful - but not careful enough. He is persuasive, and she is overwhelmed. It is not her fault, but the world says it is.... An Oxford Bookworms Library reader for learners of English, adapted from the Thomas Hardy original by Clare West.

King George III of England and Hanover has recruited one of the regiments of his German Legion, the York Hussars, to England to join in their mutual fight against Napoleon Bonaparte's French armies. Stationed on the Dorset Downs, Corporal Matthäus Tina, of the York Hussars, aged 22, is beset by a melancholic homesickness for his native home town of Saarbrück, where his mother still lives.

A bold new dramatisation of Thomas Hardy’s classic, giving his story a 21st-century resonance. Tess Durbeyfield is driven by poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urberville family. But meeting her cousin Alec proves to be her downfall. This classic criticism of social convention is given a new treatment in this full-cast adaptation which blows away the shepherd's pipe and heritage stereotype, foregrounding Hardy's social and sexual radicalism.