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  • Published: 10 December 2020
  • ISBN: 9781787539556
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 3 hr 0 min
Categories:

Tess of the D'Urbervilles




A bold new dramatisation of Thomas Hardy's classic, giving his story a 21st-century resonance.

A bold new dramatisation of Thomas Hardy's classic, in which his famous heroine evolves from a 'ruined maid' into a doomed but dignified woman in love.

When Tess Durbeyfield's father discovers that their family is descended from the aristocratic Stoke-D'Urbervilles, he insists that Tess visits them to 'claim kinship'. Arriving at the great house, she is given a job by the D'Urbervillles' son, Alec, who is attracted by her innocence and beauty and attempts to seduce her. But this is not a man used to being rejected, and he will not leave her alone...

Tess of the D'Urbervilles attracted fierce criticism on first publication for its challenge to Victorian moral and sexual attitudes, and its depiction of a heroine who did not conform to the familiar binary stereotypes of virgin and whore. This fresh, compelling full-cast dramatisation puts Tess centre stage as the narrator of her own life - wrestling with her conscience, searching for solutions and making her own decisions - revealing her as a complex, modern woman and illuminating Thomas Hardy as a man ahead of his time.

Produced and directed by Mary Peate and Emma Harding

  • Published: 10 December 2020
  • ISBN: 9781787539556
  • Imprint: BBC DL
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 3 hr 0 min
Categories:

Other books in the series

Emma
Persuasion
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
Selected Poetry
On Sparta
Man and Superman
Saint Joan
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset in 1840 and became an apprentice architect at the age of sixteen. He spent his twenties in London, where he wrote his first poems. In 1867 Hardy returned to his native Dorset, whose rugged landscape was a great source of inspiration for his writing. Between 1871 and 1897 he wrote fourteen novels, including Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. This final work was received savagely; thereafter Hardy turned away from novels and spent the last thirty year of his life focusing on poetry. He died in 1928.

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