The daughter of a wealthy railway magnate, Paula Power inherits De Stancy Castle, an ancient castle in need of modernization. She commissions George Somerset, a young architect, to undertake the work. Somerset falls in love with Paula but she, the Laodicean of the title, is torn between his admiration and that of Captain De Stancy, whose old-world romanticism contrasts with Somerset's forward-looking attitude. Paula's vacillation, however, is not only romantic. Her ambiguity regarding religion, politics and social progress is a reflection of the author's own. This new Penguin Classics edition...

Cytherea has taken a position as lady's maid to the eccentric arch-intriguer Miss Aldclyffe. On discovering that the man she loves, Edward Springrove, is already engaged to his cousin, Cytherea comes under the influence of Miss Aldclyffe's fascinating, manipulative steward Manston.
Blackmail, murder and romance are among the ingredients of Hardy's first published novel, and in it he draws blithely on the 'sensation novel' perfected by Wilkie Collins. Several perceptive critics praised the author as a novelist with a future when Desperate Remedies appeared anonymously in 1871. In...

"Backgrounds and Contexts" provides new and invaluable source material on Victorian Dorset and, in particular, Dorchester, Hardy's native home and the town upon whichCasterbridge is based. Included are six of Hardy's nonfiction writings, notably excerpts from his essay "The Dorsetshire Laboure" (1883), in which he frankly comments on the social changes he has witnessed in the county. Hardy's Wessex is further examined in an essay by Michael Millgate, by maps of Casterbridge and Wessex, and by a key to local place names. Christine Winfield discusses the novel's manuscript and its...

With an Introduction and Notes by Phillip Mallett, Senior Lecturer in English, University of St Andrews.

Educated beyond her station, Grace Melbury returns to the woodland village of little Hintock and cannot marry her intended, Giles Winterborne. Her alternative choice proves disastrous, and in a moving tale that has vibrant characters, many humorous moments and genuine pathos coupled with tragic irony, Hardy eschews a happy ending.

With characteristic derision, he exposes the cruel indifference of the archaic legal system off his day, and shows the tragic...

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was born in Dorset. He left school at sixteen to work as an apprentice for an architect who specialized in church restoration. He made his reputation as a novelist, and it wasn't until after the publication of his last novel, The W

Cruelly seduced by her relative, the cynical Alec D'Urberville, betrayed by the moral Angel Clare and haunted by her guilt and shame, Tess becomes Hardy's indictment of all the crimes and hyprocrisies of 19th-century England.

Poems of 1912 13 and the other elegies about Emma included in this volume have been read and discussed by poets and scholars for almost a century but never collected in their own book. Their accessibility, emotional power, and focus on the mysterious complexities of marriage make them of interest to a broad public. Readers will cherish this beautifully produced, illustrated volume of poetical testaments to enduring love. "

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman or just Tess is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialized version, published by the British illustrated newspaper, The Graphic. It is Hardy's penultimate novel, followed by Jude the Obscure. Though now considered a great classic of English literature, the book received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual mores of Hardy's day. The original manuscript is on display at the British Library showing the title had originally been "Daughter of the d'Urbervilles."

HarperCollins is pround to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

Thomas Hardy, (1840 - 1928) was an English novelist and poet. He was highly critical of Victorian society and focussed mainly on the declining rural communities. Far From the Madding Crowd - Bathsheba Everdene is an independent and courageous woman who arrives in Weatherbury to become the farmer of the largest estate locally. She attracts three suitors, each completely different to the other. Each also challenges her and complicates her life, leading to a drama that affects the whole village. This is Hardy's first novel set in Wessex, and his descriptions of the rural community and the...