Thomas Hardy
16) Selected poems
17) The well-beloved
Sculptor Jocelyn Pierston is obsessed by the notion of female beauty—and he'll travel to the ends of the earth to find a living, breathing model that embodies the ideal that haunts his imagination. His creative quest compels him to hang around the edges of a family of famed British beauties and pester three generations of the women. Will he fulfill his artistic dream? Read The Well-Beloved to find out.
Many of Thomas Hardy's best-known works of fiction were set in the Dorset region, which he called "Wessex." Many of these poems, written over a period of 30 years, are also set in and deeply influenced by the Wessex landscape. Although Hardy considered himself to be more a poet than a novelist, this was his first published collection of verse.