num_pages: 512
description: The novels of Thomas Hardy have a permanent place on every booklover's shelf, yet little is known about the interior life of the man who wrote them. A believer and an unbeliever, a socialist and a snob, an unhappy husband and a desolate widower, Hardy challenged the sexual and religious conventions of his time in his novels and then abandoned fiction to reestablish himself as a great twentieth-century lyric poet. In this acclaimed new biography, Claire Tomalin, one of today's preeminent literary biographers, investigates this beloved writer and reveals a figure as rich and complex as his tremendous legacy.
language: English
title: Thomas Hardy
titlecomplete: Thomas Hardy
genres: Biography, Poetry, Literature, Victorian, British Literature, Nonfiction, History, 19th Century, Books About Books, Biography Memoir
ratings_count: 1643
awards: awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Biography
publisher: Penguin Press