Works of Thomas Hardy discussion

I have thought that Hardy creates some excellent heroines, with Eustacia Vye from Return of the Native as the standout creation.
Out of his 14 novels, there are 7 centered on a woman with several suitors:

Under the Greenwood Tree - 3
Far From the Madding Crowd -3
The Trumpet Major - 3
A Pair of Blue Eyes - 2
The Laodician -2
The Hand of Ethelberta - 4
Tess - 2

Only 3 novels are Male-centered

Jude
Mayor of C
The Well-Beloved

The remaining 4 are more balanced with strong male and female leads

Twp on a Tower
The Woodlanders
Return of the Native - the native is male but then there is Ms. Vye
Desperate Remedies

While the stories are of the relations between men and women, my view is that Hardy tells more stories of women.

And I am very impressed by Brian's knowledge of the works! I have way to go.

I did wonder if the format of GND is influenced by Chaucer. The idea of a group of connected individuals identified by function (historian, surgeon etc) rather than by name, exchanging stories, is like the Canterbury Tales, while the collection of 10 stories reminds me a lot of the 9 stories of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. One of Chaucer's stories deals with two women, so the number of women is 10 again.

In Chaucer, the stories are stories of love. So far (I have only read story number 1 as yet) this would seem to be true of GND.

Martin, I hadn't thought of that before, but I bet you're right. I really know very little about GND but, since the stories seem a diversion from his normal writing, it makes sense that Hardy would purposely choose to write something in the Chaucer tradition.