Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)
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Authors: Thomas Hardy
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
THOMAS HARDY
(1840-1928)
Contents
AN INDISCRETION IN THE LIFE OF AN HEIRESS
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HARDY’S SHORT STORIES
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF HARDY’S SHORT STORIES
POEMS OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT
TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS AND OTHER VERSES
MOMENTS OF VISION AND MISCELLANEOUS VERSES
LATE LYRICS AND EARLIER WITH MANY OTHER VERSES
HUMAN SHOWS FAR PHANTASIES SONGS, AND TRIFLES
WINTER WORDS IN VARIOUS MOODS AND METRES
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
TRAGEDY OF THE QUEEN OF CORNWALL
A STUDY OF THOMAS HARDY by D.H. Lawrence
THOMAS HARDY by Leon H. Vincent
THE LYRICAL POETRY OF THOMAS HARDY by Edmund Gosse
UNDER FRENCH ENCOURAGEMENT by David Christie Murray
THOMAS HARDY by John Cowper Powys
A NOTE ON THE GENIUS OF THOMAS HARDY by Arthur Symons
THE EARLY LIFE OF THOMAS HARDY, 1841–1891 by Florence Hardy
THE LATER YEARS OF THOMAS HARDY, 1892–1928 by Florence Hardy
© Delphi Classics 2012
Version 7
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
THOMAS HARDY
The Novels
Thomas Hardy’s birthplace, Higher Bockhampton, Dorset
Thomas Hardy’s parents — his father Thomas was a successful stonemason and his mother Jemima was well-educated.
THE POOR MAN AND THE LADY
This was the title of Hardy’s very first novel, written in 1867 and never published. After the manuscript had been rejected by several publishers, Hardy gave up his attempts to sell the novel in its original form. Nevertheless, he used some of the novel’s scenes and themes in later works, particularly in the poem “The Poor Man and the Lady” and in the novella
An Indiscretion in the Life of an Heiress
(1878).
Sadly, the manuscript no longer exists. Hardy destroyed the last surviving fragment in his last years, after giving up an attempt of rewriting the novel.
Here is the surviving poem based on the lost novel:
AN EXPOSTULATION
The Poor Man and the Lady
Why want to go afar
Where pitfalls are,
When all we swains adore
Your featness more and more
As heroine of our artless masquings here,
And count few Wessex’ daughters half so dear?
Why paint your appealing face,
When its born grace
Is such no skill can match
With powder, puff, or patch,
Whose every touch defames your bloomfulness,
And with each stain increases our distress?
Yea, is it not enough
That (rare or rough
Your lines here) all uphold you,
And as with wings enfold you,
But you must needs desert the kine-cropt vale
Wherein your foredames gaily filled the pail?
Here is the novella influenced by Hardy’s first novel:
AN INDISCRETION IN THE LIFE OF AN HEIRESS
CONTENTS