Weathers:
A Selection of Thomas Hardy’s Poems

ESTIMATED PUBLICATION DATE:
Fall 2025

Although Hardy is best known as a novelist whose reputation as a Victorian ‘realist’ in the company of George Eliot laid the way for the early 20th century novels of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and D H Lawrence, he considered himself first a poet. His collected edition runs to nearly a thousand poems, and his range as a poet is considerable – from contemplative philosophical pieces to ballads of village life, and from lyric poems describing nature to love poems; his mood is sometimes severe, occasionally even embittered, but a genuine humanity shines through even the most pessimistic of his works, and a satirical, yet kindly, eye enlivens some of his portraits of individuals, written in a tone not dissimilar to the sonnets of E A Robinson [see our page on Loose Canons 2: E A Robinson: Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford & Other Poems: ]. Hardy is a major poet whose importance, in our opinion, equals his reputation as a novelist.

We have compiled a selection of nearly sixty of Hardy’s poems which we hope will convey a useful and pleasing overview of his work. Many of his poems are very well known – ‘The Darkling Thrush’, ‘Afterwards’, ‘In Time of “The Breaking of Nations” ’, and ‘The Ruined Maid’, to name a few – and these will be present. But we hope that many of the poems we have chosen will come to the readers as fine surprises.

We have chosen the English wood engraver, Jane Randfield, to illustrate the poems. Her deft renderings of nature, animals, and people reflect a deep affinity for and understanding of the English countryside. A dozen or more of her engravings will provide an evocative visual accompaniment to the poems.

We expect to publish Weathers in the Fall of 2025. We will offer more details on pricing and scheduling when they become firm.