Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

 

             

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF

THOMAS HARDY

(1840-1928)

Contents

The Novels

THE POOR MAN AND THE LADY

AN INDISCRETION IN THE LIFE OF AN HEIRESS

DESPERATE REMEDIES

UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE

A PAIR OF BLUE EYES

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA

THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE

THE TRUMPET-MAJOR

A LAODICEAN

TWO ON A TOWER

THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE

THE WOODLANDERS

TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES

JUDE THE OBSCURE

THE WELL-BELOVED

The Short Story Collections

WESSEX TALES

LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES

A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES

The Short Stories

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HARDY’S SHORT STORIES

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF HARDY’S SHORT STORIES

The Poetry Collections

WESSEX POEMS AND OTHER VERSES

POEMS OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT

TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS AND OTHER VERSES

SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE

MOMENTS OF VISION AND MISCELLANEOUS VERSES

LATE LYRICS AND EARLIER WITH MANY OTHER VERSES

HUMAN SHOWS FAR PHANTASIES SONGS, AND TRIFLES

WINTER WORDS IN VARIOUS MOODS AND METRES

The Poems

LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Plays

THE DYNASTS

TRAGEDY OF THE QUEEN OF CORNWALL

The Criticism

A STUDY OF THOMAS HARDY by D.H. Lawrence

THOMAS HARDY by Leon H. Vincent

THE LYRICAL POETRY OF THOMAS HARDY by Edmund Gosse

UNDER FRENCH ENCOURAGEMENT by David Christie Murray

THOMAS HARDY by John Cowper Powys

A NOTE ON THE GENIUS OF THOMAS HARDY by Arthur Symons

The Biographies

THE EARLY LIFE OF THOMAS HARDY, 1841–1891 by Florence Hardy

THE LATER YEARS OF THOMAS HARDY, 1892–1928 by Florence Hardy

Hardy’s Wessex Map

© Delphi Classics 2012

Version 7

 

 

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF

THOMAS HARDY

 

 

The Novels

Thomas Hardy’s birthplace, Higher Bockhampton, Dorset

 

 

Thomas Hardy’s parents — his father Thomas was a successful stonemason and his mother Jemima was well-educated.

 

THE POOR MAN AND THE LADY

 

This was the title of Hardy’s very first novel, written in 1867 and never published. After the manuscript had been rejected by several publishers, Hardy gave up his attempts to sell the novel in its original form.  Nevertheless, he used some of the novel’s scenes and themes in later works, particularly in the poem “The Poor Man and the Lady” and in the novella
An Indiscretion in the Life of an Heiress
(1878).

Sadly, the manuscript no longer exists.  Hardy destroyed the last surviving fragment in his last years, after giving up an attempt of rewriting the novel.

 

Here is the surviving poem based on the lost novel:

 

 

AN EXPOSTULATION

The Poor Man and the Lady

 

Why want to go afar
Where pitfalls are,
When all we swains adore
Your featness more and more
As heroine of our artless masquings here,
And count few Wessex’ daughters half so dear?
Why paint your appealing face,
When its born grace
Is such no skill can match
With powder, puff, or patch,
Whose every touch defames your bloomfulness,
And with each stain increases our distress?
Yea, is it not enough
That (rare or rough
Your lines here) all uphold you,
And as with wings enfold you,
But you must needs desert the kine-cropt vale
Wherein your foredames gaily filled the pail?

 

 

Here is the novella influenced by Hardy’s first novel:

 

AN INDISCRETION IN THE LIFE OF AN HEIRESS

 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

 

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