> Skip to content
  • Published: 2 September 1998
  • ISBN: 9780140435382
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $24.00
Categories:

Jude the Obscure




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

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: 2 September 1998
  • ISBN: 9780140435382
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $24.00
Categories:

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.

Also by Thomas Hardy

See all