A dozen minor novels that have been published in the periodical press collected together.

This slightly-built romance was the outcome of a wish to set the emotional history of two infinitesimal lives against the stupendous background of the stellar universe, and to impart to readers the sentiment that of these contrasting magnitudes the smaller might be the greater to them as men.

Hardy's masterpiece traces a poor stonemason's ill-fated romance with his free-spirited cousin. No Victorian institution is spared - marriage, religion, education - and the outrage following publication led the embittered author to renounce fiction. Modern critics hail this novel as a pioneering work of feminism and socialist thought.

The story takes place in a small woodland village called Little Hintock, and concerns the efforts of an honest woodsman, Giles Winterborne, to marry his childhood sweetheart, Grace Melbury. Although they have been informally betrothed for some time, her father has made financial sacrifices to give his adored only child a superior education and no longer considers Giles good enough for her. When the new doctor - a well-born and handsome young man named Edred Fitzpiers - takes an interest in Grace, her father does all he can to make Grace forget Giles, and to encourage what he sees as a...

Elfride finds herself caught in a battle between her heart, her mind and the expectations of her parents and society. The novel is notable for the strong parallels to Hardy and his first wife Emma Gifford. When Elfride's father finds that his guest and candidate for his daughter's hand, architect's assistant Stephen Smith, is the son of a mason, he immediately orders him to leave. This was the third of Hardy's novels to be published and the first to bear his name.

Described by Hardy as a tale of "mystery, entanglement, surprise and moral obliquity," his first published novel violated the literary decorum of its day with blackmail, murder, and romance. It relates the story of Cytherea, a maid to the eccentric arch-intriguer Miss Aldclyffe, and the man she loves, Edward Springrove. Upon discovering that Edward is already engaged, Cytherea comes under the influence of Miss Aldclyffe's fascinating, manipulative steward, Manston.

Thomas Hardy was an English writer and poet in the Romantic era who was greatly influenced by Charles Dickens and William Wordsworth. His historical fiction is still widely popular today.

Thomas Hardy was an English writer and poet in the Romantic era who was greatly influenced by Charles Dickens and William Wordsworth. His historical fiction is still widely popular today.

Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with the beautiful youth Swithin St Cleeve, her social inferior and ten years her junior. The tower in question is a monument converted into an astronomical observatory where together the lovers 'sweep the heavens'. Science and romance are destined to collide, however, as work, ambition and the pressures of the outside world intrude upon the pair.

Jude Fawley, a young man who craves education like others might crave food or drink. Jude decides he wants to go to university and he works toward that goal until at the age of nineteen he is sidelined when the girl he has been courting tells him she is pregnant. Jude marries this girl, but, the pregnancy having been a lie to trap him, the marriage quickly fails and the girl leaves. Jude moves to the university town a short time later and meets his soul mate in his cousin, Sue Bridehead. However, Sue refuses to love him and instead marries another. In time, Sue comes back to Jude, but tragedy...