130,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Overnight NZ-wide delivery 🚀 Auckland Bookstore • Open 7 days, 8:30am–5pm

Wessex Poems and Other Verses

3.7 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 286 ratings, 33 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Wessex Poems and Other Verses marks Thomas Hardy's transition from novel writing to poetry, following the harsh reception of Jude the Obscure. This collection features Dorset ballads, verses inspired by the Napoleonic Wars, and deeply personal reflections on Hardy's life and loves, all infused with his enduring affection for Wessex. First published in 1898, it announces a significant new poetic voice in Hardy's career.
Read More
Format: Hardback
$2400
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for lovers of classic English poetry, readers interested in Thomas Hardy's literary evolution, and those drawn to evocative regional verse steeped in history and personal reflection.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description
A collectible new Penguin Classics series- beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets Wessex Poems was Hardy's first collection of poetry, published after he had turned away from novel writing, disillusioned by the savage reception Jude the Obscure had received. Its publication marked the start of an extraordinary new phase in Hardy's writing career- for the rest of his long life, he would write only poetry. Here are sprightly Dorset ballads, verses set during the Napoleonic Wars, and personal poems reflecting on Hardy's life and loves. Composed throughout Hardy's life and animated by his affection for his beloved Wessex, their publication in 1898 heralded the arrival of a major new poetic voice.

Series: Penguin Clothbound Poetry

View all
  • Leaves of Grass
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series offers beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. In 1855, Walt Whitman published his first collection of poetry, Leaves of Grass. The volume received great praise from leading Transcendentalist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. This encouragement led to what would become a lifelong project, as Whitman expanded and rewrote the volume until his death...
    Hardback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Lyrical Ballads
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series—beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. Lyrical Ballads (1798) is a landmark collection of poems that marks the beginning of the English Romantic Movement in literature. Co-written by friends William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the collection broke away from traditional poetic form. Of the twenty-three poems, Wordsworth penned works such as 'Lines...
    Hardback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Goblin Market and Other Poems
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series - beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. Goblin Market and Other Poems was Christina Rossetti's first full volume of poetry, published in 1862. The collection received widespread critical praise and established Rossetti as the foremost female poet of her time. Tennyson, Hopkins, and Swinburne all admired her work. The title poem Goblin...
    Hardback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Tower
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series—beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. The Tower was W. B. Yeats's first major collection of poetry as Nobel Laureate after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1923. It is considered to be one of his most influential collections. The title refers to Thoor Ballylee Castle, a Norman tower that Yeats purchased in 1917...
    Hardback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    73% off
    A Shropshire Lad
    A collectible new Penguin series - beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. A Shropshire Lad was first published in 1896 at A. E. Housman's own expense. The collection of lyrical poems became hugely successful following the Second Boer War and World War I, with themes such as nostalgia for one's home and the patriotic celebration of the life...
    Hardback
    $600
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Songs of Innocence and of Experience
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series: beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. Songs of Innocence and of Experience is one of the best-loved poetry collections of all time, an innovative and groundbreaking experiment in which Blake intertwined text and image to dazzling effect. The volume, published sometimes as two separate collections, juxtaposes the innocent world of childhood with...
    Hardback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Poems
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series – beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. Poems is Wilfred Owen's only volume of poetry, first published posthumously in 1920 and edited by his friend and mentor, Siegfried Sassoon. Owen is regarded as one of the best poets of World War I and composed nearly all of his poems in just over...
    Hardback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Temple
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series: beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. On his deathbed, George Herbert entrusted the manuscript of The Temple to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, asking him to publish it if he thought it was worthy. Herbert died in 1633, and the collection was published the same year to great acclaim, subsequently becoming one of...
    Hardback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes and Other Poems
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series: beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets. In the summer of 1820, Keats published this collection, his third and final volume of poetry. A few months earlier, he had started coughing up blood; the following February, he would die of tuberculosis in Rome, aged just twenty-five. This volume contains his greatest work, written...
    Hardback
    $2400
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Wessex Poems and Other Verses
    A collectible new Penguin Classics series- beautiful, slim, clothbound editions of ten favourite poets Wessex Poems was Hardy's first collection of poetry, published after he had turned away from novel writing, disillusioned by the savage reception Jude the Obscure had received. Its publication marked the start of an extraordinary new phase in Hardy's writing career- for the rest of his...
    Hardback
    $2400
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241303139

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 24 August 2017

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 19.0mm

Width: 120.0mm

Height: 187.0mm

Weight: 201g

Pages: 144

About the Author

Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset in 1840 and became an apprentice architect at the age of sixteen. He spent his twenties in London, where he wrote his first poems. In 1867 Hardy returned to his native Dorset, whose rugged landscape was a great source of inspiration for his writing. Between 1871 and 1897 he wrote fourteen novels, including Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. This final work was received savagely; thereafter Hardy turned away from novels and spent the last thirty year of his life focusing on poetry. He died in 1928.

Also by Thomas Hardy

View all
  • On Sale
    17% off
    Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    The new paperback series—Penguin English Library "I would be content, ay, glad, to live with you as your servant, if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be near you, and get glimpses of you, and think of you as mine ... I long for only one thing in heaven or earth or under the earth,...
    Paperback
    $2000
    Usually:
    $2400
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope...
    Paperback
    $2399
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Far from the Madding Crowd
    Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Jude the Obscure
    Jude the Obscure tells the story of Jude Fawley, a stonemason excluded not by his wits but by poverty from the world of Christminster privilege. He finds fulfilment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both have left earlier marriages. Ironically, when tragedy tests their union, it is Sue, the modern emancipated woman, who proves unequal to the challenge. Hardy's fearless...
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    Backorder
    Ships mid November
  • Jude the Obscure
    A beautiful clothbound edition of Hardy's most tragic novel. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality, colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. Jude Fawley's hopes of an education at Christminster University are dashed when he is trapped into marrying the wild,...
    Hardback
    $3600
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    Beautifully designed, clothbound edition Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting...
    Hardback
    $3600
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Tess of the D’Urbervilles
    HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am! Challenging the hypocrisy and social conventions of the rural Victorian world, Tess of the...
    Paperback
    $1099
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Sale
    19% off
    The Mayor of Casterbridge
    A stunning clothbound edition of The Mayor of Casterbridge, a haunting study of guilt and lost love. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife...
    Hardback
    $2900
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge
    In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge. However, behind his success always lurks the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Return of the Native
    Penguin Classics relaunch. The Return of the Native was written towards the beginning of Hardy's career as a novelist and can be considered one of his most representative works. In this novel, Hardy's tragic vision is powerfully and narrowly focused on Egdon Heath and the men and women who live on it. Set against the backdrop of the Heath and...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Woodlanders
    Penguin Classics relaunch When country-girl Grace Melbury returns home from her middle-class school, she feels she has risen above her suitor, the simple woodsman Giles Winterborne. Though marriage had been discussed between her and Giles, Grace finds herself captivated by Dr Edred Fitzpiers, a sophisticated newcomer to the area—a relationship that is encouraged by her socially ambitious father. Hardy's novel...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Backorder
    Ships mid November
  • Thomas Hardy Boxed Set
    A beautiful boxed set of four of Thomas Hardy's greatest works Set in Hardy's fictional realm of Wessex, these four charming novels have been brought together in a stunning clothbound set, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. From the moving and poetic story of Tess of the D'Urbervilles to the intensely dramatic tale of The Mayor of Casterbridge, this collection...
    Box Set
    $13100
    Elsewhere:
    $14500
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

More from Arts & Culture

View all
  • Dylan's Pick
    Bold Types
    A tribute to 32 truly independent bookshops throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, from north of Auckland down to Dunedin, and coast to coast. Jane Ussher's photographs show every bookstore in its unique nature - including behind the counter, smoko rooms, the mess which tells the hardworking story behind the joy of matching books with customers. Jemma Moreira's careful editing has crafted...
    Hardback
    $5999
    Elsewhere:
    $7000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    I’ll Believe in Anything
    From Jacob Tierney, the creator of Heated Rivalry, in partnership with Brendan Brady and Accent Aigu, comes I’ll Believe in Anything, an official and complete collection of annotated scripts for the biggest cultural sensation of the year, with all new exclusive behind-the-scenes content.Based on Rachel Reid’s blockbuster Game Changers book series, Heated Rivalry premiered on Crave and HBO in late 2025 and immediately took the world by storm. I’ll...
    Hardback
    $5499
    Elsewhere:
    $6000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    16% off
    New Release
    Home Again
    Join rock-legend, former Shihad frontman and lead singer of The Adults, Jon Toogood in this unflinching and no-holds-barred memoir Home Again.This is more than a rock story. Toogood looks back on a 37-year career that helped define New Zealand rock music, and the personal cost that came with it. From a music-obsessed childhood in Wellington to the deafening roar of international stages, this...
    Paperback
    $2700
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    20% off
    The Odyssey
    Composed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travellers, hospitality, and the yearning for home. This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative....
    By Homer
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $3599
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    21% off
    The Iliad
    When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017—revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)—critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira, New York Times) and "a cultural landmark" (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an...
    By Homer
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Disney Moana: The Official Cookbook
    On Sale
    20% off
    Disney Moana: The Official Cookbook
    Embark on a culinary adventure with Moana of Motunui with Pacific recipes inspired by Moana and Moana 2! After a long day of sailing to see how far you’ll go or keeping the demigod Maui out of trouble with Te Fiti, catch a break with the delicious dishes in Moana: The Official Cookbook! Featuring more than 50 recipes spanning the...
    Hardback
    $3600
    Elsewhere:
    $5299
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    A Life in Lyrics
    Freddie Mercury was one of the greatest showmen of the twentieth century. With his unparalleled voice and searing on-stage energy, he was a great pretender, a killer queen and a champion of the world. But behind the glamour lived a musician and lyricist talented beyond measure, and the creative force behind one of the most culturally significant and musically diverse...
    Hardback
    $5000
    Elsewhere:
    $6500
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Birdlands Birdlands
    New Release
    Birdlands
    A rare, intimate journey into the wild islands where Aotearoa's birds live beyond the reach of most human lives. In the most remote outposts of Aotearoa, our islands are populated not with people, but with birds. From the storm-lashed Subantarctic Islands in the deep south to the scattered volcanic islands of Tikapa Moana/Hauraki Gulf in the north, Birdlands offers a...
    Hardback
    $4199
    Elsewhere:
    $5000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • On Sale
    21% off
    This Angry Pen of Mine
    This Angry Pen of Mine by Layne Staley invites you to dive into the untold creative world of Layne Staley, the legendary voice behind Alice in Chains. This extraordinary collection showcases his handwritten lyrics, deeply personal poetry, stunning original artwork, rare photos, fan tributes, and so much more. Step into the world of Layne Staley like never before. For the...
    Hardback
    $5800
    Elsewhere:
    $8999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Mah Jong Player's Companion
    Since the arrival on the market of Patricia Thompson and Betty Maloney's two previous books, The Game of Mah Jong Illustrated and Improve Your Mah Jong, a wide range of hands from many parts of the world has been sent to them. In this player's companion, the authors have put together a cross-filled reference guide where over 120 hands, illustrated...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Elsewhere:
    $2299
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Split Enz
    New Release
    Split Enz
    'My favourite band. Ever! And certainly the best dressed.' Sam Neill Split Enz were never designed to fit. Emerging from art school mischief in early-1970s New Zealand, they turned pop into surreal theatre: costume, character and melody colliding in a rock band that refused to behave like one. At the centre of that vision was Noel Crombie—percussionist, performer and the...
    Hardback
    $5199
    Elsewhere:
    $6500
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Artist's Way
    The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is a transformative guidebook that has captivated millions, including luminaries such as Elizabeth Gilbert and Tim Ferriss. With its profound ability to inspire and elevate, this book invites readers to embark on an enriching creative journey, fostering a deeper connection to one's artistic process and sense of purpose. The heart of Cameron's groundbreaking programme...
    Paperback
    $3700
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.