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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 · 736,813 ratings · 40,602 reviews · 2,782 distinct works • Similar authors
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
3.84 avg rating — 299,100 ratings — published 1891 — 5 editions
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Far From the Madding Crowd
3.97 avg rating — 163,822 ratings — published 1874 — 2562 editions
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Jude the Obscure
3.83 avg rating — 75,132 ratings — published 1895 — 1878 editions
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The Mayor of Casterbridge
3.86 avg rating — 65,346 ratings — published 1886 — 2022 editions
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The Return of the Native
3.88 avg rating — 40,039 ratings — published 1878 — 1373 editions
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The Woodlanders
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3.90 avg rating — 17,631 ratings — published 1887 — 1599 editions
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Under the Greenwood Tree
3.64 avg rating — 14,376 ratings — published 1872 — 1092 editions
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A Pair of Blue Eyes
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3.79 avg rating — 8,934 ratings — published 1873 — 666 editions
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Two on a Tower
3.71 avg rating — 4,453 ratings — published 1882 — 717 editions
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Desperate Remedies
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3.78 avg rating — 3,586 ratings — published 1871 — 5 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
1318 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

September 2017 Old School Classic Poll

 
  48 votes, 15.3%

Hamlet by William Shakespeare 1600, 289 pages
 
  43 votes, 13.7%

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling 1894, 277 pages
 
  33 votes, 10.5%

 
  26 votes, 8.3%

Utopia by Thomas More 1516, 135 pages
 
  25 votes, 8.0%

Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens 1839, 817 pages
 
  19 votes, 6.1%

 
  19 votes, 6.1%

 
  18 votes, 5.7%

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy 1895, 310 pages
 
  17 votes, 5.4%

 
  16 votes, 5.1%

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 1883, 262 pages
 
  15 votes, 4.8%

 
  13 votes, 4.1%

Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant 1885, 416 pages
 
  10 votes, 3.2%

 
  9 votes, 2.9%

East Lynne by Mrs. Henry Wood 1861, 694 pages
 
  3 votes, 1.0%

314 total votes
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