Where to start with Thomas Hardy

British novelist, 1840–1928.

Best Thomas Hardy book to start with: Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), on 5 of the 13 lists it could have made.

If you only read one Hardy, make it Tess of the d’Urbervilles. The story pulls you along, and it shows what Hardy does best: a woman’s life in rural Wessex, the countryside as a force in its own right, and a sense of fate closing in. It is a sad book, so choose a good moment.

If you’d like something gentler, Far from the Madding Crowd is the most cheerful of his big novels and a good first Hardy. The Mayor of Casterbridge comes next, with a tightly built plot about a man who wrongs his family early on and spends the rest of the book paying for it.

The Return of the Native is slower and cares more about the heath than the people on it. Save Jude the Obscure for last. Critics rate it highly, and it is the bleakest of them all. Its reception is often said to have ended his career as a novelist.