Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community.

In drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby at a country fair. Over the following years, he establishes himself as a pillar of society but his shameful secret is never to leave him. Featuring one of Hardy's most memorable characters, the novel portrays Victorian country life.

Although best remembered for his novels, Thomas Hardy thought of himself as a poet forced by circumstance to write fiction for a living. This selection of nearly two hundred poems includes pieces, such as During Wind and Rain , Channel Firing , Afterwards , The Darkling Thrush , The Oxen , To Lizbie Browne , and others.

Already an established novelist, for the final 30 years of his life Thomas Hardy abandoned fiction and devoted himself entirely to his first love, poetry. Collected in this volume are his eight books of verse, all the uncollected poems, Domicilium , and the songs from The Dynasts .

The unhappily married Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with Swithin St Cleeve, an astronomer who is ten years her junior. Her husband's death leaves the lovers free to marry, but the discovery of a legacy forces them apart.

Covers the prehistory and early history of the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire and Avon.

The prehistory and early history of Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, Avon, and the city of Bristol.

Thomas Hardy is one of the sacred figures in English writing, a great poet and a novelist with a world reputation. His life was also extraordinary: from the poverty of rural Dorset he went on to become the Grand Old Man of English life and letters, his last resting place in Westminster Abbey. This seminal biography, by our leading biographer, covers Hardy's illegitimate birth, his rural ...

Enter a world where bloody battles, and heroic deeds combine in the historic struggle to unite Britain in the face of a common enemy. The third instalment in Bernard Cornwell's King Alfred series, follows on from the outstanding previous novels The Last Kingdom and The Pale Horseman.

Combines the love-story of Lil-Umbra and Raymond de Laon, and the quest of the Mongolian giant, Peleg, for Ghosta, the girl seen, loved, and lost on the battlefield, with the historical, theological and magical threads. This novel presents the mysterious creation of Friar Roger Bacon, one of the boldest and intricate of the author's inventions.

It is the lowest time for the Saxons. Defeated by the Vikings who now occupy most of England, Alfred and his group of surviving followers retreat to the trackless marshlands of Somerset. Only Uhtred remains resolute. His plan is to become accepted by their leaders, and to sit in their councils and uncover their plans.

The darkly passionate short stories of Thomas Hardy are compelling explorations of love, social class, superstition and legend. This collection contains many of his finest and most representative, and includes The Withered Arm', an eerie depiction of arcane witchcraft in nineteenth-century England; Barbara of the House of Grebe', in which a beautiful man's tragic disfigurement by fire is savagely

In 1806, Domesday Book, perhaps the most remarkable historical document in existence, was compiled. This tremendous story of England and its people was made at the behest of the Norman king William the Conqueror. It was called Domesday, the day of judgement, because 'like the day of judgement, its decisions are unalterable'.

Asser's Life of King Alfred, written in 893, is a revealing account of one of the greatest of medieval kings. Composed by a monk of St David's in Wales who became Bishop of Sherborne in Alfred's service and worked with him in his efforts to revive religion and learning in his kingdom, this life is among the earliest surviving royal biographies. It is an admiring account of King Alfred's life, ...

A tale of mystery, entanglement, surprise and moral obliquity in which 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 steward Manston.

Few places lie closer to the heart of England's heritage than the New Forest. This work covers from the cruel forest laws of the Normans and their passion for hunting, to the founding of Beaulieu Abbey by capricious King John; from the very real dangers of the Spanish Armada to the elegance of Georgian Lymington; and more.

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.