Far from the Madding Crowd

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Far from the Madding Crowd is the first of Thomas Hardy's great novels, and the first to sound the tragic note for which his fiction is best remembered."-Margaret Drabble

Far from the Madding Crowd , the fourth novel written by Thomas Hardy, is a pensive yet pastoral novel that initially appeared in serial form in the late 1800's. It has since become one of the most popular books of English literature, with its rich rhythms of rural life, beautiful and independent heroine, and romantic intrigue.

In Wessex, the novel's apocryphal region of rural southwest England, the independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has a chance encounter with a virtuous young shepherd named Gabriel Oak; He is taken by her beauty, and proposes marriage, and she refuses. Soon after, Bathsheba moves away to the town of Weatherbury, and Gabriel falls on hard times. Penniless, and roving from town to town seeking employment, he happens to come upon a fire ravaging a farm. Gabriel aids in getting the fire under control, and is stunned to discover that the farm is owned by Bathsheba. Once again, they are reunited, yet now Gabriel is employed as a farmhand. When a second suitor, a local landowner, seeks her affection the inextricable struggles of love and betrayal spins Bathsheba's life into a maze of uncontrollable frenzy and passion.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Far from the Madding Crowd is both modern and readable. 

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. He destroyed the manuscript of his first, unplaced novel, but -- encouraged by mentor and friend George Meredith -- tried again. His important work took place in an area of southern England he called Wessex, named after the English kingdom that existed before the Norman Conquest.

Recently made into a critically acclaimed film starring Carey Mulligan

Far from the Madding Crowd is the first of Thomas Hardy's great novels, and the first to sound the tragic note for which his fiction is best remembered.