The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament

Written by Thomas Hardy

Narrated by Leighton Pugh

Jocelyn Pierston, a successful sculptor, is helpless in the face of ‘the well-beloved’: the manifestation of perfect womanhood that seems to move like a will-o’-the-wisp from one acquaintance to the next. It shapes his whole life. Where his artistry involves permanence – cold stone objects – his heart is caught by ephemeral beauty. After years spent in London, a return to his rocky birthplace, the Isle of Slingers, sparks Pierston’s extraordinary involvement with three generations of the Caro family. As a reworking of his earlier The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved, it is the last novel that Hardy wrote, in 1897 – not a realist work, but instead a rather fantastical exploration of male desire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781781983430

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English poet and author who grew up in the British countryside, a setting that was prominent in much of his work as the fictional region named Wessex. Abandoning hopes of an academic future, he began to compose poetry as a young man. After failed attempts of publication, he successfully turned to prose. His major works include Far from the Madding Crowd(1874), Tess of the D’Urbervilles(1891) and Jude the Obscure( 1895), after which he returned to exclusively writing poetry.