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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 · 727,311 ratings · 39,430 reviews · 2,337 distinct works • Similar authors
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
3.84 avg rating — 295,694 ratings — published 1891 — 385 editions
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Far From the Madding Crowd
3.97 avg rating — 161,424 ratings — published 1874 — 268 editions
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Jude the Obscure
3.83 avg rating — 74,319 ratings — published 1895 — 1874 editions
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The Mayor of Casterbridge
3.86 avg rating — 64,654 ratings — published 1886 — 1994 editions
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The Return of the Native
3.88 avg rating — 39,660 ratings — published 1878 — 274 editions
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The Woodlanders
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3.89 avg rating — 17,343 ratings — published 1887 — 783 editions
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Under the Greenwood Tree
3.64 avg rating — 14,129 ratings — published 1872 — 524 editions
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A Pair of Blue Eyes
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3.79 avg rating — 8,815 ratings — published 1873 — 476 editions
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Two on a Tower
3.71 avg rating — 4,360 ratings — published 1882 — 994 editions
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The Hand of Ethelberta
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3.64 avg rating — 3,684 ratings — published 1876 — 1249 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
1344 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

May 2016 Old School Classic Poll

1877, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 245 pages
 
  41 votes, 18.6%

 
  36 votes, 16.3%

1853, Villette by Charlotte Brontë, 573 pages
 
  29 votes, 13.1%

 
  21 votes, 9.5%

1796, The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis, 386 pages
 
  15 votes, 6.8%

1867, Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola, 201 pages
 
  14 votes, 6.3%

1895, Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, 310 pages
 
  13 votes, 5.9%

1833, Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, 240 pages
 
  11 votes, 5.0%

 
  10 votes, 4.5%

 
  9 votes, 4.1%

1864, Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 477 pages
 
  8 votes, 3.6%

 
  8 votes, 3.6%

1859, Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov, 567 pages
 
  6 votes, 2.7%

221 total votes
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