The Three Strangers, Thomas Hardy
The Three Strangers, Thomas Hardy
List: $8.00 | Sale: $5.60
Club: $4.00

The Three Strangers

Author: Thomas Hardy

Narrator: Cathy Dobson

Unabridged: 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/01/2013


Synopsis

When a stranger turns up at Shepherd Fennel's party, held in honour of his daughter's christening, he is welcomed and treated to home-brewed mead, a pipe and tobacco and a seat by the fire. When a second, altogether more sinister stranger arrives, he too is welcomed, although he makes rather too free with the host's liquor and sings a song revealing his terrible secret. When a third stranger arrives in the midst of the second stranger's song and taking one look into the room, flees in terror, the guests are mystified. But quickly the truth of the situation is revealed and the chase is on...except that all is not quite as it seems. Gripping!

About Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was an English poet and regional novelist whose works depict the county "Wessex," named after the ancient kingdom of Alfred the Great. Hardy's career as a writer spanned over fifty years, and his work reflected his stoic pessimism and sense of tragedy in human life.

Hardy was born in the village of Higher Bockhampton to a master mason. Hardy's mother, whose tastes included Latin poets and French romances, provided for his education. After schooling in Dorchester, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect. In 1874, Hardy married Emma Lavinia Gifford, for whom he wrote (after her death) a group of poems known as Veteris Vestigiae Flammae ("Vestiges of an Old Flame").

At the age of twenty-two, Hardy moved to London and started to write poems that idealized the rural life. An assistant in the architectural firm of Arthur Blomfield, Hardy visited art galleries, attended evening classes in French at King's College, enjoyed Shakespeare and opera, and read works of Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and John Stuart Mills. In 1867 Hardy left London for the family home in Dorset. There, he continued his architectural career but started to consider literature his "true vocation."

Initially, Hardy did not find an audience for his poetry, and the novelist George Meredith advised Hardy to write a novel. The Poor Man and the Lady, written in 1867, was rejected by many publishers, and Hardy destroyed the manuscript. His first book to gain notice was Far from the Madding Crowd. After its success, Hardy was convinced that he could earn his living with his pen. Devoting himself entirely to writing, Hardy produced a series of novels, including Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, both of which met with public disapproval due to their unconventional subjects. This controversy led Hardy to announce that he would never write fiction again.

After giving up the novel, Hardy brought out a first group of Wessex poems, some of which had been composed thirty years before. During the remainder of his life, hecontinued to publish several collections of poems. Upon the death of his friend George Meredith, Hardy succeeded to the presidency of the Society of Authors in 1909. King George V conferred on him the Order of Merit, and in 1912 he received the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature.

After Emma Hardy died, Thomas married his secretary, Florence Emily Dugdale. From 1920 through 1927 Hardy concentrated on his autobiography, which was disguised as the work of Florence Hardy. It appeared in two volumes. Hardy's last book was Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles. His Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres appeared posthumously in 1928. Hardy died in Dorchester, Dorset, on January 11, 1928.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Plateresca on July 30, 2023

I saw this story in a list of the best short stories in English and, frankly, I was skeptical, because who isn't skeptical about such lists, right? But indeed, it is very good. It's very atmospheric in the beginning (hard wind, merciless rain - all the nice things one wants to read about in the midd......more

Goodreads review by Janelle on January 28, 2022

This is an atmospheric story set at a christening party at a isolated shepherds hut on a bleak, rainy evening. Three strangers arrive one after the other and what follows is a clever little tale of a prisoner, sentenced to death, outwitting the hangman!......more

Goodreads review by Gwynplaine26th on February 22, 2019

Un viaggio breve, fatto di 8 racconti, tra le campagne del Wessex, la contea immaginaria che Hardy propone in molti suoi romanzi: I tre sconosciuti: 3/5 Il braccio avvizzito: 4/5 La tragedia di due ambizioni: 3/5 Barbara della casata dei Grebe: 3/5 Nel distretto occidentale: 4/5 Il veto del figlio: 3/5 Il......more

Goodreads review by Adri on January 16, 2025

funny......more