Thomas Hardy strana 5 z 8

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 ...

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.

Hardy's last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure caused much outrage when it was published in 1895. Jude Fawley, poor and working-class, longs to study at the University of Christminster, but his ambitions to go to university are thwarted by class prejudice and his entrapment 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. This is the first truly critical edition, taking account of the changes that Hardy made over twenty-five years. Hardy's last, and most controversial novel, this revised edition has the first truly critical text, a new chronology and bibliography, and substantially revised notes.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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?

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?

In this, his first collection of short stories, Hardy sought to record thelegends, superstitions, local customs, and lore of a Wessex that was rapidlypassing out of memory. But these tales also portray the social and economicstresses of 1880s Dorset, and reveal Hardy's growing scepticism about thepossibility of achieving personal and sexual satisfaction in the modern world.By turns humorous, ironic, macabre, and elegiac, these seven stories show therange of Hardy's story-telling genius. The critically established text, thefirst to be based on detailed study of all revised texts, presents manuscriptreadings which have never before appeared in print. The stories include TheThree Strangers; A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four; The Melancholy Hussarof the German Legion; The Withered Arm; Fellow-Townsmen; Interlopers at theKnap; The Distracted Preacher

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, including such classics as An Imaginative Woman and A Tragedy of Two Ambitions. Unified by his quintessential irony, strong visual sense, and engaging characters, these stories deal with the tragic and the humorous, the metaphysical and the magical. This edition is the first to be based on a critical examination of all available manuscript and printed versions of the texts.

Strhující příběh o vzestupu a pádu člověka pronásledovaného vlastní minulostí. Hrdina příběhu, mladý zemědělský dělník Michael Henchard, prodá v opilosti, za pouhých pět quineí, svou ženu a dítě. Později se díky své přičinlivosti, bystrosti a energii domůže vynikajícího postavení, ale minulost ho pronásleduje dál a donutí ho, aby svedl zápas nejen o postavení a veškerý majetek, ale i o přízeň svých blízkých. Jeho drsná hrdost nakonec zapříčiní jeho pád. Vyjádřena v poslední vůli hovoří za všechn o: ,,Nechci, aby Elizabeth-Jane Fafraeová byla uvědomena o mé smrti nebo aby nosila smutek, abych byl pohřben do posvátné půdy, aby mi zvonili hranu, aby kdokoli viděl mou mrtvolu, aby někdo šel za mou rakví, aby na mém hrobě vysázel květiny, aby na mě kdokoli vzpomínal. To stvrzuji svým jménem. Michael Henchard".

This edition presents a critically established text based on comparisons of every revised version. Hardy placed this tale among his Novels of Character and Environment, a group which is held to include his most characteristic work.

I cannot allow any man to - to criticise my private conduct!' she exclaimed. 'Nor will I for a minute'. Hardy's powerful novel of swift sexual passion and slow-burning loyalty centres on Bathsheba Everdene, a proud working woman whose life is complicated by three different men - respectable farmer Boldwood, seductive Sergeant Troy and devoted Gabriel - making her the object of scandal and betrayal. Vividly portraying the superstitions and traditions of a small rural community, "Far from the Madding Crowd" shows the precarious position of a woman in a man's world. 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.

As you got older, ...you were seized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and scorched it. If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a man'. Jude Fawley, the stonemason excluded not by his wits but by poverty from the world of Christminster privilege, finds fulfilment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both have left earlier marriages. Ironically, when tragedy tests their union it is Sue, the modern emancipated woman, who proves unequal to the challenge. Hardy's fearless exploration of sexual and social relationships and his prophetic critique of marriage scandalised the late Victorian establishment and marked the end of his career as a novelist. 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.

Here - I am waiting to know about this offer of mine. The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?' In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. 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.

Do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called life - music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that is going on in the great arteries of the world?' Tempestuous Eustacia Vye passes her days dreaming of passionate love and the escape it may bring from the small community of Egdon Heath. Hearing that Clym Yeobright is to return from Paris, she sets her heart on marrying him, believing that through him she can leave rural life and find fulfilment elsewhere. But she is to be disappointed, for Clym has dreams of his own, and they have little in common with Eustacia's. Their unhappy marriage causes havoc in the lives of those close to them, in particular Damon Wildeve, Eustacia's former lover, Clym's mother and his cousin Thomasin. "The Retun of the Native" illustrates the tragic potential of romantic illusion and how its protagonists fail to recognize their opportunities to control their own destinies. 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.

"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.

Then they proceeded to scan the sky, roving from planet to star, from single stars to double stars, from double to coloured stars...' Hardy's atmospheric, moving story of star-crossed lovers shows human beings at the mercy of forces far beyond their control, setting a tragic drama of human passion and conflict against a background of vast stellar space and scientific discovery. "Two on a Tower" tells the story of Lady Constantine, who breaks all the rules of decorum when she falls in love with the beautiful youth Swithin St Cleeve, her social inferior and ten years her junior. Together, in an ancient monument converted into an astronomical observation tower, they create their own private universe - until the pressures of the outside world threaten to destroy it. This is 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.

This is the "Penguin English Library Edition" of "Under the Greenwood Tree" by Thomas Hardy. 'At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or did it continue to cover its normal area of ground? It was a question meditated several hundreds of times by her visitor in after-hours - the meditation, after wearying involutions, always ending in one way, that it was impossible to say'. The arrival of two newcomers in the quiet village of Mellstock arouses a bitter feud and leaves a convoluted love affair in its wake. While the Reverend Maybold creates a furore among the village's musicians with his decision to abolish the church's traditional 'string choir' and replace it with a modern mechanical organ, the new schoolteacher, Fancy Day, causes an upheaval of a more romantic nature, winning the hearts of three very different men - a local farmer, a church musician and Maybold himself. "Under the Greenwood Tree" follows the ensuing maze of intrigue and passion with gentle humour and sympathy, deftly evoking the richness of village life, yet tinged with melancholy for a rural world that Hardy saw fast disappearing. "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.