Böcker av Thomas Hardy

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled 'A Story of a Man of Character', Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.

Rich with biographical echoes, this novel reveals the emergence of the schematic ironies which characterise the author's later works

Wessex Tales was the first collection of Hardy's short stories, and they reflect the experience of a novelist at the height of his powers.

Volumes 4 and 5 of this complete collection of Hardy's poetry contain all of his dramatic writing in verse. Explanatory notes describe each work's composition and publication, and provide supporting material from Hardy's letters and notebooks. Production and performance details are also included.

Although best remembered for his novels, Thomas Hardy thought of himself as a poet forced by circumstance to write fiction for a living. This selection of nearly two hundred poems includes pieces, such as "During Wind and Rain", "Channel Firing", "Afterwards", "The Darkling Thrush", "The Oxen", "To Lizbie Browne", and others.

The Melancholy Hussar/ A Tragedy of Two Ambitions/ The First Countess of Wessex/ Barbara of the House of Grebe/ For Conscience' Sake/ The Son's Veto/ On the Western Circuit/ An Imaginative Woman/ A Changed Man/ Enter a Dragoon The 11 short storiesin this collection range from those with the Wessex setting familiar from Hardy's novels, to aristocratic historical fantasies set in the 17th and 18th centuries, and tragic or ironic contemporary dramas. Enormously readable in their own right, thestories can also be seen as a rich testing ground for ideas and themes that receive more sustained treatment in Hardy's most innovative and controversial novels.

The darkly passionate short stories of Thomas Hardy are compelling explorations of love, social class, superstition and legend. This collection contains many of his finest and most representative, and includes 'The Withered Arm', an eerie depiction of arcane witchcraft in nineteenth-century England; 'Barbara of the House of Grebe', in which a beautiful man's tragic disfigurement by fire is savagely exploited by his rival; 'The Son's Veto', showing the cruelty of an educated youth towards his ignorant but tender mother; and 'The Distracted Preacher', the story of one man's conflict between heartfelt love and his own sense of moral and civic duty. By turns moving and poetic, and surprisingly modern and brutally macabre, these eloquent tales may be numbered among the greatest creations of Hardy's genius.

Wild passion leads to tragedy as love is perverted by marriage. But the concerns of mortals are belittled by the sombre, immemorial presence of Egdon Heath, perhaps Hardy's finest evocation of his native landscape. The text is accompanied by a critical introduction.

Heden kring Wessex i sydvästra England bildar bakgrund för den storslagna historien om fem älskandes öden i slutet av 1800-talet, men utgör också ett personporträtt i egen rätt i Thomas Hardys älskade klassiker. Landskapets skiftningar speglar invånarnas känslotillstånd och formar deras drömmar, inte minst den drottninglika och splittrade Eustacia Vyes som längtar efter storstadens äventyr. Under det att hon har en affär med kvinnotjusaren och pubägaren Damon Wildeve träffar hon Clym Yeobright, nyss hemkommen från sin tid som affärsman i Paris, som vill starta en skola för de fattiga och okunniga i sin gamla hemtrakt. Men heden visar sig bära på en seglivad hednisk motståndskraft där människans goda föresatser snabbt tar en annan riktning. Istället kantar hopplös kärlek, uppflammande passion, missförstånd och ensamhet deras väg i denna tragedi, som också bär idyllens skönhet. Denna oförglömliga kärlekshistoria av shakespearianska mått har filmatiserats flera gånger. I originalöversättning av August BruniusThomas Hardy (1840-1928) var en engelsk poet och romanförfattare. I hans romaner ser man spår av både romantik och realism, vilket kanske bäst visar sig i hans romaner där människornas passioner tillsammans med omgivningen kring Wessex styr deras öden. Under sin tid blev han kanske mest hyllad som poet, vilket understryks av att hans aska ligger i legendariska Poet's corner i Westminster Abbey. Hans skildringar från Wessex har dock fått en ny renässans i vår tid, och symboliskt nog ligger hans hjärta begravt i Stinsford parish church, på landsbygden i Dorset, i den trakt som så starkt präglade hans romaner.

Tess Derbyfield växer upp i fattigdom på en bondgård. Hon är vacker och troskyldig så när hennes pappa skickar iväg henne till den välbärgade släkten d‘Urberville anar hon inget ont, trots de lystna blickar hon får av adelsfamiljens son, Alec d‘Urberville. Senare i sitt liv tar Tess anställning som mjölkerska och faller då handlöst för den blivande missionären Angel Clare. Tess vill gifta sig med Angel, men det förflutna plågar henne.I originalöversättning av Karin WenströmThomas Hardy (1840-1928) var en brittisk författare som skapade stort rabalder med sin roman Tess. Idag är Charles Dickens mycket mera känd, men Thomas Hardy var lika stor, om inte större, än Dickens under 1800-talets senare hälft.