Winter

Winter, Christopher Nicholson's third novel, is an imagined account of a crisis in the career of one of England's greatest writers, Thomas Hardy. Set in the English countryside, it traces the emotional lives of three characters - the elderly Hardy, his middle-aged wife and a young and beautiful local actress - over the course of a long and difficult winter in the mid 1920s.

The novel was first published in the UK in 2014. It has also been published in the United States, and in translation in France and Spain. An audio version is available www.soundcloud.com

Winter was the inspiration for a BBC Radio 4 drama, Tess in Winter, broadcast in December 2015. The part of Florence Hardy was played by Pippa Haywood, and for her performance she was shortlisted in the Best Actress category at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2017. The novel has also been adapted for the stage, under the title of A Pure Woman. It opened at the Corn Exchange in Dorchester on 27th September 2018 and toured to nine further venues in southern England.


Link Read reviews of the novel
Link Read the opening lines
Link Christopher Nicholson on the writing of Winter