Jude the Obscure

"The greatest tragic writer among English novelists."-Virginia Woolf "There is no other novelist alive with the breadth of sympathy, the knowledge or the power for the creation of Jude." --H. G. Wells endering of a disturbed teenager. Jude the Obscure, the semi-autobiographical final novel from Thomas Hardy explores notions of surprising candor; within the eponymous protagonist lies the tragic truth of failed ambitions and relationships. In a fierce exploration of the darkness of love and the intellect, this is one of the great tragic novels of English literature. Jude Fawley, an earnest boy from a rural English village, dreams of a life of academia despite his working-class background. His childhood schoolmaster has moved away from the village to teach at the University in Christminster. Jude spends his free time self-educating himself with the aspirations of enrolling at Christminster, yet his dreams are thwarted when he falls in love with Arabella, a loutish and deceptive young woman who lures him into a disastrous marriage. After abandoning each other, Jude returns to his dream of becoming a scholar; he moves to Christminster, where he falls in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead, and subsequently abandons all hope of academia. An intricate web of darkness ensues when Arabella returns into his life with a troubled son, who she informs is Jude's. Trapped in an uncontrollable descent, Jude's fate delivers him unspeakable tragedy. Jude The Obscure is one of literatures great works that explore the alienation and intricacies of man's place in the world. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Jude the Obscure is both modern and readable.

When Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure appeared in 1895, it immediately caused scandal and controversy. Its frank treatment of Jude’s sexual relationships with Arabella and Sue, its scathing criticisms of late-Victorian hypocrisy, its depiction of the “New Woman,” and its attacks on “holy wedlock” and religious bigotry outraged numerous reviewers; one called the book “Jude the Obscene.” Others saw it as brilliantly progressive in its ideas and techniques. Vivid and complex, satiric and harrowing, this novel marked the culmination of Hardy’s development as a leading novelist of the cultural transition from the Victorian to the Modernist era. The Broadview edition restores the original, controversial 1895 text.