Try free for 30 days

1 credit a month to use on any title, yours to keep (you’ll use your first credit on this title).
Stream or download thousands of included titles.
Access to exclusive deals and discounts.
$16.45 a month after 30 day trial. Cancel anytime.
Thomas Hardy cover art

Thomas Hardy

By: Thomas Hardy
Narrated by: Walter Zimmerman, Jill Masters
Try for $0.00

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $16.09

Buy Now for $16.09

Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.

Editorial reviews

English writer Thomas Hardy is now best known for novels like Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. In Thomas Hardy: Selected Short Stories, the listener can also witness his facility in shorter forms.

The collection opens with "The Three Strangers", given an energetic performance by Walter Zimmerman, in which an executor takes shelter with an escaped convict. Later, Jill Masters offers a soft-spoken performance in The Distracted Preacher, which concerns a young preacher sent to the town of Nether-Moynton. There he meets a beautiful widow, an innkeeper with an interesting side business.

Narrators Zimmerman and Masters use various regional English accents to voice Hardy’s brilliant evocations of rural England in the 19th century.

Publisher's Summary

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 near Dorchester in that part of England he called Wessex. With stories sometimes from his own imagination and sometimes from local tradition, Hardy's work, like Dickens and Trollope, creates a strong sense of mood and location. Hardy hoped to be remembered for his poetry, but ours is not a poetic age. Thus his claim to a new generation of fans rests on his prose. There are great similarities between his era, a time of challenge, and our own.

This collection of short stories shows Hardy as his best and includes "The Three Strangers", "The Withered Arm", "The Fiddler of the Reels", "Barbara of the House of Grebe", and "The Distracted Preacher" .

Public Domain (P)1984 Jimcin Recordings

What listeners say about Thomas Hardy

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.