This Reader's Guide analyses the critical history of two major nineteenth-century novels by the popular Victorian author Thomas Hardy, from the time of their publication to the present. Simon Avery explores how different generations of readers and critics have responded to the texts and maps out the ways in which various critical and theoretical schools have deployed differing - and often contradictory - interpretative strategies towards them. The ideological complexities of film and television adaptations of the two works are also considered, as are possible future developments in Hardy criticism. The Guide therefore provides an informed and reflective assessment of over a hundred years of Hardy criticism, allowing readers to trace the shifts in response to these key novels.