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  • Published: 21 November 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141974118
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 512

Jude the Obscure




The new paperback series: Penguin English Library

'As you got older, ... you were seized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived. All around you there seemed to be something glaring, garish, rattling, and the noises and glares hit upon the little cell called your life, and shook it, and scorched it.

If he could only prevent himself growing up! He did not want to be a man'

Jude Fawley, the stonemason excluded not by his wits but by poverty from the world of Christminster privilege, finds fulfilment in his relationship with Sue Bridehead. Both have left earlier marriages. Ironically, when tragedy tests their union it is Sue, the modern emancipated woman, who proves unequal to the challenge. Hardy's fearless exploration of sexual and social relationships and his prophetic critique of marriage scandalised the late Victorian establishment and marked the end of his career as a novelist.

  • Published: 21 November 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141974118
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 512

Other books in the series

Russian Thinkers
The New Penguin Book Of American Short Stories, From Washington Irving To Lydia Davis
When You Are Old
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
The Good Soldier
Selected Poetry
Venus in Furs
Man and Superman
Military Dispatches
The Prelude

About the author

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) wrote stories, novellas, and novels. His work exposed the injustices of Victorian society. However, following the widespread outrage in reaction to his novel Jude the Obscure, Hardy abandoned fiction altogether and spent his last years writing poetry.

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