Thomas Hardy's last novel Jude the Obscure is a fearless exploration of the hypocrisy of
Victorian society edited with an introduction by Dennis Taylor in Penguin Classics. Jude
Fawley's hopes of an education at Christminster university are dashed when he is trapped into
marrying the wild earthy Arabella who later abandons him. Moving to Christminster to work as
a stonemason Jude meets and falls in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead a sensitive
freethinking 'New Woman'. Refusing to marry merely for the sake of religious convention Jude
and Sue decide instead to live together but they are shunned by society and poverty soon
threatens to ruin them. Jude the Obscure with its fearless and challenging exploration of
class and sexual relationships caused a public furore when it was first published and marked
the end of Hardy's career as a novelist. This edition uses the unbowdlerized first-volume text
of 1895 and includes a list for further reading appendices and a glossary. In his
introduction Dennis Taylor examines biblical allusions and the critique of religion in Jude
the Obscure and its critical reception that led Hardy to abandon novel writing. Thomas Hardy
(1840-1928) born Higher Brockhampton near Dorchester. Though he saw himself primarily as a
poet Hardy was the author of some of the late eighteenth century's major novels: The Mayor of
Casterbridge (1886) Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and
Jude the Obscure (1895). Amidst the controversy caused by Jude the Obscure he turned to the
poetry he had been writing all his life. In the next thirty years he published over nine
hundred poems and his epic drama in verse The Dynasts . If you enjoyed Jude the Obscure you
might also like Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles also available in Penguin Classics.
'Visceral passionate anti-hypocrisy anti-repression ... Hardy reaches into our wildest
recesses' Evening Standard
