She bared her poor curst arm. A jealous lover's curse and an ingenious party trick feature in these two suspenseful stories set in Hardy's imaginary Wessex. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries — including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

This is the story of Bathsheba Everdene, who inherits her uncle's farm, then surprises the villagers of Weatherbury by deciding to run it herself rather than hire a manager. Three men vie for the affections of this independent young woman.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Grace Melbury, the only daughter of a timber-merchant, arrives home in Little Hintock after an expensive education and her father looks to find a husband for her. There are two rivals for her hand: Giles Winterborne, a good-hearted yeoman and her childhood sweetheart, and Edred Fitzpiers, an ambitious young doctor of good family. Fitzpiers wins her, but the mismatch brings unhappiness not just to the young couple, but to a wider circle in the woodland community. 'The Woodlanders' is one of Hardy's most powerful works and the one he liked best. With brooding sexual undertones, it addresses themes about which the author held strong views — the laws of divorce, the inequalities of society, and the uncertainty of land tenure.

Dealing with themes of determinism and inescapable fate, Thomas Hardy's novels are also reknowned for depicting the intimate relationship between character and the environment. Unflinchingly honest in portraying characters and their fortunes, Hardy depicts life with all its harsh realities. Tess of the D'Urbervilles received negative reviews when first published in 1891. Originally criticised as being too pessimistic, it is now regarded as a classic. The story of Tess's painful journey from girl to woman and her traumatic relationships with Alec D'Urberville and Angel Clare, is presided over by the unwavering hand of justice. The Major of Casterbridge recounts the life of Michael Henchard as he reaches the pinnacle of power, self esteem and self-satisfaction, only to lose it through folly and bad luck. The emotional rise and fall of Henchard is described with the greatest insight and sensitivity. Far from the Madding Crowd is the first of Hardy's Wessex tales. It relates the story of Bathsheba Everdene and the men who love her. Set against the farming community, tragedy and love unfold alongside the continual struggle of rural life.

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swiftpassion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.

Michael Henchard is a wealthy and respected man, but he has a terrible secret. Twenty years ago, when he was unemployed and penniless, he sold his wife to a sailor. Now she is looking for him again. Why? And what will happen when she finds him?

Gabriel Oak is an honest, hard-working young farmer, who falls in love with the beautiful and independent Bathsheba Everdene. After a tragic accident, Gabriel loses his farm. Bathsheba, on the other hand, becomes rich. Is there any hope for Gabriel?

«This is the «Penguin English Library Edition» of «Tess of the D'Urbervilles» by Thomas Hardy. «I would be content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant, if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine...I long for only one thing in heaven or earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own dear! Come to me — come to me, and save me from what threatens me!» When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, «Tess of the D'Urbervilles» is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels. «The Penguin English Library» — 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.»

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. From the author of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree is a tale of love, tragedy, and the changing charm of traditional village life when it is met with the cold reality of modernity. Centring on the quaint rural village of Mellstock, set deep within Hardy's imagined and picturesque county of Wessex, the novel revolves around a double plot of the hopeful love story of Dick Dewey and Fancy Day and the tragic demise of the Mellstock Choir, and what the crumbling of long-held traditions means to the local community. The arrival of Mr Maybold, a new vicar with newfangled ideas, unsettles the local community with ideas of revolutionary change, in which the church and its generations-old choir are an anchor. Considered one of Hardy's most upbeat and optimistic novels, Under the Greenwood Tree explores issues of past and future, hope and love, and is a delightful addition to the Collins' canon of Thomas Hardy classic novels.

The graded readers series of original fiction, adapted fiction and factbooks especially written for teenagers. An adaptation of the classic story of Michael Henchard who rises above his poor and humble beginnings to become a successful businessman. But then, an awful secret from his past catches up with him and Henchard must pay the price. This paperback is in British English. It is also available with a CD-ROM and 2 Audio CDs with vocabulary games and complete text recordings from the book.

«Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice. Hardy's indictment of society's double standards, and his depiction of Tess as «a pure woman», caused controversy in his day and has held the imagination of readers ever since. Hardy thought it his finest novel, and Tess the most deeply felt character he ever created. This unique critical text is taken from the authoritative Clarendon edition, which is based on the manuscript collated with all Hardy's subsequent revisions.»

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels.

The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her? Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife Susan and baby daughter. Eighteen years later Susan and her daughter seek him out, only to discover that he has become the most prominent man in Casterbridge. Henchard attempts to make amends for his youthful misdeeds but his unchanged impulsiveness clouds his relationships in love as well as his fortunes in business. Although Henchard is fated to be a modern-day tragic hero, unable to survive in the new commercial world, his story is also a journey towards love. This edition is the only critically established text of the novel, based on a comprehensive study of the manuscript and Hardy's extensive revisions.

Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. Elfride is the daughter of the Rector of Endelstow, a remote sea-swept parish in Cornwall based on St Juliot, where Hardy began the book during the first days of his courtship of his first wife Emma. Blue-eyed and high-spirited, Elfride has little experience of the world beyond, and becomes entangled with two men: the boyish architect, Stephen Smith, and the older literary man, Henry Knight. The former friends become rivals, and Elfride faces an agonizing choice. Written at a crucial time in Hardy's life, A Pair of Blue Eyes expresses more directly than any of his novels the events and social forces that made him the writer he was. Elfride's dilemma mirrors the difficult decision Hardy himself had to make with this novel: to pursue the profession of architecture, where he was established, or literature, where he had yet to make his name?

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul? Jude Fawley, poor and working-class, longs to study at the University of Christminster, but he is rebuffed, and trapped in a loveless marriage. He falls in love with his unconventional cousin Sue Bridehead, and their refusal to marry when free to do so confirms their rejection of and by the world around them. The shocking fate that overtakes them is an indictment of a rigid and uncaring society. Hardy's last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure caused outrage when it was published in 1895. This is the first truly critical edition, taking account of the changes that Hardy made over twenty-five years. It includes a new chronology and bibliography and substantially revised notes.

Bathsheba Everdene is young, proud, and beautiful. She is an independent woman and can marry any man she chooses — if she chooses. In fact, she likes her independence, and she likes fighting her own battles in a man's world. But it is never wise to ignore the power of love. There are three men who would very much like to marry Bathsheba. When she falls in love with one of them, she soon wishes she had kept her independence. She learns that love brings misery, pain, and violent passions that can destroy lives...

Tony Kytes is a favourite with the girls but he's not terribly clever. If you meet an old girlfriend and she asks for a ride home in your wagon, do you say yes? And then if you meet the girl you are planning to marry, what do you do? Very soon, Tony is in a great muddle, and does not know how to escape from it. These stories are set in an English country village of the nineteenth century, but Hardy's tales of mistakes and muddles and marriages belong in any place, at any time.

A woman and a man... words of love whispered on a summer night. Later, there is a child, but no wedding-ring. And then the man leaves the first woman, finds a younger woman, marries her... It's an old story. Yes, it's an old, old story. It happens all the time — today, tomorrow, a hundred years ago. People don't change. But this story, set among the green hills of southern England, has something different about it. Perhaps it is only a dream, or perhaps it is magic — a kind of strange dark magic that begins in the world of dreams and phantoms...

The phrase 'life's little ironies' is now proverbial, but it was coined by Hardy as the title for this, his third volume of short stories. While the tales and sketches reflect many of the strengths and themes of the great novels, they are powerful works in their own right. Unified by his quintessential irony, strong visual sense, and engaging characters, they deal with the tragic and the humorous, the metaphysical and the magical. The collection displays the whole range of Hardy's art as a writer of fiction, from fantasy to uncompromising realism, and from the loving re-creation of a vanished rural world to the repressions of fin-de-siecle bourgeois life.

I shall do one thing in this life — one thing for certain — that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die. Gabriel Oak is only one of three suitors for the hand of the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene. He must compete with the dashing young soldier Sergeant Troy and respectable, middle-aged Farmer Boldwood. And while their fates depend upon the choice Bathsheba makes, she discovers the terrible consequences of an inconstant heart. Far from the Madding Crowd was the first of Hardy's novels to give the name of Wessex to the landscape of south-west England, and the first to gain him widespread popularity as a novelist. Set against the backdrop of the unchanging natural cycle of the year, the story both upholds and questions rural values with a startlingly modern sensibility. This new edition retains the critical text that restores previously deleted and revised passages.