Seventeen volumes of his work are available from Penguin Classics.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), the author of Jude the Obscure, The Return of the Native, and Tess of the D'Urbervilles, was also an accomplished poet. It all comes together in the end as she and Gabriel prepare to live happily ever after, the only Hardy characters so blessed! J.C. Nathaniel Parker seems to be one of them-or all of them-as he slips naturally from one character to another, even capturing the voice of Bathsheba as she laments her disastrous marriage. As the rustic workers bring in the harvest, or shear the sheep, or barter at the market-their lively dialogue projects pictures of nineteenth-century Wessex that are almost as vivid as the paintings of John Constable. Those who relished the recent PBS series will be happy to know that this audio version is read by Gabriel Oak himself-Nathaniel Parker. Random's Modern Library is reproducing this Hardy standard as a tie-in to a Masterpiece Theater presentation and offering a quality hardcover for a reasonable price. The contrasting relationships between Bathsheba and her suitors are a study of the many faces of love, including honest, heartfelt love and unscrupulous and manipulative adoration. The plot centers on Bathsheba Everdene, a farm owner, and her three suitors, Gabriel Oak (a generous shepherd), Sergeant Troy (a young, handsome, and inconsiderate soldier), and William Boldwood (the owner of the neighboring farm). Novel by Thomas Hardy, published serially and anonymously in 1874 in The Cornhill Magazine and published in book form under Hardy's name the same year. The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature The background of this tale is the Wessex countryside in all its moods. This work tells the story of young farmer, Gabriel Oak, and his pursuit of the elusive Bathsheba Everdene, whose wayward nature lends her to both tragedy and true love. This edition presents a new text of the novel restoring several manuscript passages never before published with the novel, and many of the 1901 revisions missing from nearly all modern versions. Her choice, and the tragedy it provokes, lie at the centre of Hardy's ambivalent story. When the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene inherits her own farm, she attracts three very different suitors: the seemingly commonplace, man-of-the-soil Gabriel Oak, the dashing young soldier, Francis Troy, and the respectable, middle-aged Farmer Boldwood. Far from the Madding Crowd was the first of Hardy's novels to apply the name of Wessex to the landscape of south west England, and the first to gain him widespread popularity as a novelist.
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