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Thomas Hardy

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Thomas Hardy


Born
in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England
June 02, 1840

Died
January 11, 1928

Genre
Fiction, Poetry

Influences
Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, John Milton, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Bro ...more


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 chos ...more

Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.87 · 750,552 ratings · 42,269 reviews · 2,420 distinct works • Similar authors
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
3.84 avg rating — 304,071 ratings — published 1891 — 3329 editions
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Far From the Madding Crowd
3.97 avg rating — 167,303 ratings — published 1874 — 15 editions
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Jude the Obscure
3.84 avg rating — 76,368 ratings — published 1895 — 1928 editions
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The Mayor of Casterbridge
3.87 avg rating — 66,377 ratings — published 1886 — 2036 editions
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The Return of the Native
3.88 avg rating — 40,625 ratings — published 1878
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The Woodlanders
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3.90 avg rating — 17,962 ratings — published 1887 — 788 editions
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Under the Greenwood Tree
3.64 avg rating — 14,721 ratings — published 1872 — 724 editions
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A Pair of Blue Eyes
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3.79 avg rating — 9,101 ratings — published 1873 — 1032 editions
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Two on a Tower
3.71 avg rating — 4,598 ratings — published 1882 — 5 editions
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Desperate Remedies
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3.79 avg rating — 3,656 ratings — published 1871 — 949 editions
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Quotes by Thomas Hardy  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.”
― Thomas Hardy, The Personal Notebooks Of Thomas Hardy
1345 likes
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“They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends.”
― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd
1317 likes
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“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: Classic Collection
tags: strength, woman
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Polls

February 2018 Old School Poll

Macbeth by William Shakespeare 1606, 249 pages
 
  68 votes, 19.6%

Silas Marner by George Eliot 1861, 262 pages
 
  47 votes, 13.5%

 
  36 votes, 10.4%

Shirley by Charlotte Brontë 1849, 624 pages
 
  35 votes, 10.1%

 
  25 votes, 7.2%

 
  24 votes, 6.9%

Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain 1893, 160 pages
 
  22 votes, 6.3%

Evelina by Fanny Burney 1778, 455 pages
 
  20 votes, 5.8%

 
  19 votes, 5.5%

 
  15 votes, 4.3%

The Masterpiece by Émile Zola 1886, 464 pages
 
  12 votes, 3.5%

Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy 1899, 562 pages
 
  11 votes, 3.2%

Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell 1863, 484 pages
 
  8 votes, 2.3%

The Morgesons by Elizabeth Stoddard 1862, 304 pages
 
  5 votes, 1.4%

347 total votes
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