Life's Little Ironies
 A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters

by Thomas Hardy

"Life's Little Ironies" by Thomas Hardy is a collection of tales originally published in 1894. The stories explore what Hardy calls "tricks of Nature" and life's unexpected turns, set in his fictional Wessex region. The collection includes tales of vivid imagination, moral dilemmas, thwarted ambitions, and rural life, ranging from individual character studies to a series of interconnected village sketches. Hardy revised the collection in 1927, rearranging stories to better reflect their thematic connections.