The Well-Beloved was Hardy’s last novel – serialised in 1892, and published in novel form in 1897. Following the furore that surrounded the publication of Jude the obscure in 1895, Hardy turned his back on novel writing, and devoted himself to his poetry for the remaining thirty years of his life. T

After watching Tess of the d'Urbervilles, I decided I’d have to read more by the author Thomas Hardy. What truly impressed me was Hardy’s ability to create such interesting characters and to explore human nature, especially within the confines of the social mores and expectations of Victorian Britis

I loved this book. It gives a completely different approach to love than I've ever read or imagined... not that you love a person, but the spirit of your well beloved will take their shape. It may stay in that form, or for jocelyn, it continually leaves one physical form and inhabits another constan

This was a bizarre little novel, following a sculptor on a lusty lifetime pursuit for his 'well-beloved'. This term describes, in essence, his ideal female partner and he, over the years, finds such a figure in three generations of women.

The subject matter made me feel a little queasy to read about,

Η αμηχανία που αισθάνομαι είναι τεράστια και δεν ξέρω αν καν μπορώ να μεταδώσω τα ελάχιστα για το βιβλίο που διάβασα. Κατ’ αρχάς, είναι ειδικό βιβλίο και δεν απευθύνεται σε όλους: << Όταν έβλεπε κάποιους απ’ τους συνομηλίκους του πως τους φθονούσε, υποθέτοντας ότι αισθάνονται όπως έδειχναν ότι αισθ

OKCUPID BYLINE: Pretentious sculptor seeks a pretty island wench, her daughter, and her granddaughter, to idolise pointlessly for over forty years with a view to never touching or kissing ever. No smokers or catfishers. Brunettes preferred.

The Well Beloved is Hardy’s last novel (or his penultimate, depending on how you count); and it has a distinctly elegiac, valedictory feel about it. The ostensible theme is beauty and the artist’s—and lover’s—desire to possess and appropriate it; but it is also about ageing and memory and the vanish

Rather a weird Hardy... I loved the setting and the language, as always, was great, but the protagonist was quite unlikable and distinctly creepy, and there was only so long I could suspend my disbelief.

As a means of justifying his transient lusts, 20 year-old sculptor Jocelyn Pierston has invented a metaphor--that of the "Well-Beloved." The Well-Beloved never takes permanent home in a single individual woman. First she is here in the buxom laundress, next she is there in the world-traveling heires