Tess of the D’Urbervilles
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'My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!'
Challenging the hypocrisy and social conventions of the rural Victorian world, Tess of the D'Urbervilles follows the story of Tess Durbeyfield as she attempts to escape the poverty of her background, seeking wealth by claiming connection with the aristocratic D'Urberville family. It is through Tess's relationships with two very different men that Hardy tells the story of his tragic heroine, and exposes the double standards of the world that she inhabits with searing pathos and heart-rending sentiment.
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was one of the most significant novelists and poets of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His novels include ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’, ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ and ‘Jude the Obscure’.