В романе Томаса Гарди (1840–1928) рассказывается о печальной судьбе девушки, наделенной красотой и тонко чувствующей душой. Проклятие, лежащее на Тэсс, обрекает ее расплачиваться за преступления некогда могущественных предков. Готовая пожертвовать собой ради близких, она протестует против грубого посягательства на человеческое достоинство и вынуждена совершить убийство.
First published serially in 1891 in “The Graphic”, an illustrated British newspaper, “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” is one of the last novels written by Thomas Hardy. It is the titular story of Teresa “Tess” Durbeyfield, the oldest child of John and Joan Durbeyfield. The Durbeyfields are a poor family living in rural England who are led to believe by a local parson that they may actually be related to the d’Urbervilles, a noble Norman family. Trying to capitalize on this knowledge the Durbeyfields...
A level 6 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. A pretty young girl has to leave home to make money for her family. She is clever and a good worker; but she is uneducated and does not know the cruel ways of the world. So, when a rich young man says he loves her, she is careful – but not careful enough. He is persuasive, and she is overwhelmed. It is not her fault, but the world says it is. Her young life is already stained by men's desires, and...
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), dreamed since his childhood of becoming a poet. However, he produced several popular works that cemented his reputation as a great novelist of the Victorian period, and earned him the admiration of later writers like D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Hardy's stories are noted for their nuances of Romantic and Enlightenment thinking, particularly elements of the supernatural. One of what Hardy called his Novels of Ingenuity, «The Hand of Ethelberta» explores the...
A cruel joke at a country fair goes too far when a drunken laborer auctions off his wife and child to the highest bidder. So begins The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy's gripping tale of a man's rise and fall amid the natural beauty and human brutality of a rural English community.First published serially in 1886, the novel was praised by critics for its realism and poetic style. Most agreed, however, that its plot hinges upon unlikely turns of events. Hardy replied, «It is not...
HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘The movements of his mind seemed to tend to the thought that some power was working against him.’When Henchard, an out-of-work hay-trusser gets drunk and sells his wife at a country fair, his life will never be the same. Eighteen years later, his wife and daughter return to Casterbridge to find that Henchard has become Mayor. Although he’s spent most of his life attempting to repent for his actions, he remains a...
"O delivery my heart from this fearful gloom and loneliness," prays the passionate Eustacia Vye, who detests her life amid the dreary environs of Egdon Heath. With the return of Clym Yeobright from Paris, her escape for the heath and its brooding isolation appears to be at hand. Clym finds in Eustacia the same dark mystery of his native heath, and his irresistible attraction to them both leads to a clash of idealism and realism.Thomas Hardy's timeless tale of a...
A level 3 Oxford Bookworms Library graded readers. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West. On a stormy winter night, a stranger knocks at the door of a shepherd’s cottage. He is cold and hungry, and wants to get out of the rain. He is welcomed inside, but he does not give his name or his business. Who is he, and where has he come from? And he is only the first visitor to call at the cottage that night… In these three short stories, Thomas Hardy gives us pictures of the lives of...
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...