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  • Published: 1 December 1996
  • ISBN: 9780553211917
  • Imprint: Bantam Dell
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $14.99

Jude the Obscure




Sue Bridehead, his last heroine, is an extaordinarily complex woman - an English Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina.

In 1895 Hardy’s final novel, the great tale of Jude the Obscure, sent shock waves of indignation rolling across Victorian England. Hardy had dared to write frankly about sexuality and to indict the institutions of marriage, education, and religion. But he had, in fact, created a deeply moral work. The stonemason Jude Fawley is a dreamer; his is a tragedy of unfulfilled aims. With his tantalizing cousin Sue Bridehead, the last and most extraordinary of Hardy’s heroines, Jude takes on the world—and discovers, tragically, its brutal indifference.

The most powerful expression of Hardy’s philosophy, and a profound exploration of man’s essential loneliness, Jude the Obscure is a great and beautiful book. “His style touches sublimity.” —T. S. Eliot

  • Published: 1 December 1996
  • ISBN: 9780553211917
  • Imprint: Bantam Dell
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $14.99

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Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840. His father was a stonemason. He was brought up near Dorchester and trained as an architect. In 1868 his work took him to St Juliot's church in Cornwall where he met his wife-to-be, Emma. His first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, was rejected by publishers but Desperate Remedies was published in 1871 and this was rapidly followed by Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). He also wrote many other novels, poems and short stories. Tess of the D'Urbervilles was published in 1891. His final novel was Jude the Obscure (1895). Hardy was awarded the Order of Merit in 1920 and the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1912. His wife died in 1912 and he later married his secretary. Thomas Hardy died 11 January 1928.

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