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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 · 755,946 ratings · 42,979 reviews · 2,581 distinct works • Similar authors
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
3.84 avg rating — 305,987 ratings — published 1891 — 3320 editions
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Far From the Madding Crowd
3.97 avg rating — 168,644 ratings — published 1874 — 413 editions
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Jude the Obscure
3.84 avg rating — 76,867 ratings — published 1895 — 1921 editions
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The Mayor of Casterbridge
3.87 avg rating — 66,813 ratings — published 1886
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The Return of the Native
3.88 avg rating — 40,852 ratings — published 1878 — 1872 editions
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The Woodlanders
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3.90 avg rating — 18,129 ratings — published 1887 — 1621 editions
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Under the Greenwood Tree
3.64 avg rating — 14,869 ratings — published 1872 — 1090 editions
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A Pair of Blue Eyes
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3.79 avg rating — 9,176 ratings — published 1873 — 1028 editions
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Two on a Tower
3.71 avg rating — 4,650 ratings — published 1882 — 1007 editions
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Desperate Remedies
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3.79 avg rating — 3,686 ratings — published 1871 — 727 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
1346 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
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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

March 2018 Old School

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1832, 503 pages
 
  51 votes, 14.6%

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 1883, 262 pages
 
  43 votes, 12.3%

 
  36 votes, 10.3%

 
  35 votes, 10.0%

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot 1860, 579 pages
 
  33 votes, 9.5%

Jude the Obscure by 1895, 310 pages
 
  21 votes, 6.0%

 
  19 votes, 5.4%

 
  18 votes, 5.2%

The Red and the Black by Stendhal1830, 608 pages
 
  18 votes, 5.2%

 
  15 votes, 4.3%

Evelina by Fanny Burney 1778, 455 pages
 
  15 votes, 4.3%

The Misanthrope by Molière 1666, 64 pages
 
  14 votes, 4.0%

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand 1897, 240 pages
 
  11 votes, 3.2%

 
  8 votes, 2.3%

Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant1885, 416 pages
 
  7 votes, 2.0%

 
  5 votes, 1.4%

349 total votes
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