Description

A modest shepherd is put through innumerable trials and tribulations by the vain beauty he loves in Thomas Hardy’s epic 1874 novel. Gabriel Oak is a poor but successful shepherd when he falls for Bathsheba Everdene, who refuses his marriage proposal with haughtiness. She moves away, and when their paths cross again their fortunes have changed significantly. Due to the chance loss of his entire flock, Gabriel has been reduced to poverty, but Bathsheba has inherited an estate and is now rich woman. She reluctantly agrees to hire him to oversee her farm, and from his place as employee Gabriel watches with pain as Bathsheba flirts with several suitors. When she does marry the dashing sergeant Francis Troy, it quickly becomes clear that she has committed an egregious mistake. Troy harbors deep secrets and is not the man she thought him to be. As tensions build between husband and wife, Bathsheba finds herself relying more and more on Gabriel, who remains a devoted friend. The novel’s climax involves an illegitimate child, a suspected drowning, and a murder—but through it all, Hardy maintains our hope that Gabriel and Bathsheba might finally find a way to be together.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was born in Dorset, England, to a working-class family who instilled the value of education in their young son from his earliest years. After completing his formal schooling, Hardy began work as an architect’s apprentice at the age of sixteen. He continued his apprenticeship for a few years, eventually leaving it to attend King’s College, London. Although Hardy gained recognition for his work in school, he still felt that another career was calling him and so returned to Dorset to become a writer. Hardy turned out a number of poems and novels in the years to come, among them Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, and Far From the Madding Crowd. Hardy’s writing drew both praise and criticism from his readers, with some of them applauding his brutally honest depictions of rural life and modern values, and others decrying his departure from traditionally conservative Victorian literature. Known for his brooding meditations on human desires and destinies, Thomas Hardy’s works remain some of the most highly regarded in English literature.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

In reprinting this story for a new edition I am reminded that it was in the chapters of "Far from the Madding Crowd," as they appeared month by month in a popular magazine, that I first ventured to adopt the word "Wessex" from the pages of early English history, and give it a fictitious ...