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Overview

A heartbreaking portrayal of a woman faced by an impossible choice in the pursuit of happiness

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, subtitled "A Pure Woman," is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels.

Based on the three-volume first edition that shocked readers when first published in 1891, this edition includes as appendices: Hardy's Prefaces, the Landscapes of Tess, episodes originally censored from the Graphic periodical version, and a selection of the Graphic illustrations.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780141439594
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 05/27/2003
Series: Penguin Classics Series
Edition description: Reissue
Pages: 592
Sales rank: 94,482
Product dimensions: 5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester—in his writing. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Tim Dolin
teaches English at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales.

Margaret R. Higonnet teaches English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut.

Date of Birth:

June 2, 1840

Date of Death:

January 11, 1928

Place of Birth:

Higher Brockhampon, Dorset, England

Place of Death:

Max Gate, Dorchester, England

Education:

Served as apprentice to architect James Hicks

Read an Excerpt

ON an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune.

'Good night t'ee,' said the man with the basket.

'Good night, Sir John,' said the parson.

The pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and turned round.

'Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road about this time, and I zaid 'oGood night', and you made reply 'Good night, Sir John', as now.'

'I did,' said the parson.

'And once before that--near a month ago.'

'I may have.'

'Then what might your meaning be in calling me 'Sir John' these different times, when I be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?'

The parson rode a step or two nearer.

'It was only my whim,' he said; and, after a moment's hesitation: 'It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don't you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family ofthe d'Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d'Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?'

'Never heard it before, sir?'

'Well it's true. Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that's the d'Urberville nose and chin--a little debased. Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second's time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell's time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the Second's reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now.'

'Ye don't say so!'

'In short,' concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, 'there's hardly such another family in England.'

'Daze my eyes, and isn't there?' said Durbeyfield. 'And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish . . . And how long hev this news about me been knowed, Pa'son Tringham?'

The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all. His own investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring when, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the d'Urberville family, he had observed Durbeyfield's name on his waggon, and had thereupon been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather till he had no doubt on the subject.

'At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information,' said he. 'However, our impulses are too strong for our judgment sometimes. I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while.'

'Well, I have heard once or twice, 'tis true, that my family had seen better days afore they came to Blackmoor. But I took no notice o't, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where we now keep only one. I've got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what's a spoon and seal? . . . And to think that I and these noble d'Urbervilles were one flesh all the time. 'Twas said that my gr't-grandfer had secrets, and didn't care to talk of where he came from . . . And where do we raise our smoke, now, parson, if I may make so bold; I mean, where do we d'Urbervilles live?'

'You don't live anywhere. You are extinct--as a county family.'

'That's bad.'

'Yes--what the mendacious family chronicles call extinct in the male line--that is, gone down--gone under.'

'Then where do we lie?'
'At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults, with your effigies under Purbeck-marble canopies.'

'And where be our family mansions and estates?'

'You haven't any.'

'Oh? No lands neither?'

'None; though you once had 'em in abundance, as I said, for your family consisted of numerous branches. In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and another at Millpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge.'

'And shall we ever come into our own again?'

'Ah--that I can't tell!'

'And what had I better do about it, sir?' asked Durbeyfield, after a pause.

'Oh--nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of 'how are the mighty fallen'. It is a fact of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, nothing more. There are several families among the cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre. Good night.'

'But you'll turn back and have a quart of beer wi' me on the strength o't, Pa&rs'n Tringham? There's a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop--though, to be sure, not so good as at Rolliver'.'

'No, thank you--not this evening, Durbeyfield. You've had enough already.' Concluding thus the parson rode on his way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore.

When he was gone Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him. In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been pursued by Durbeyfield. The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and came near.

'Boy, take up that basket! I want 'oee to go on an errand for me.'

The lath-like stripling frowned. 'Who be you, then, John Durbeyfield, to order me about and call me 'boy'? You know my name as well as I know yours!'

'Do you, do you? That's the secret--that's the secret! Now obey my orders, and take the message I'm going to charge 'ee wi' . . . Well, Fred, I don't mind telling you that the secret is that I'm one of a noble race--it has been just found out by me this present afternoon, P.M.' And as he made the announcement, Durbeyfield, declining from his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies.

The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Thomas Hardy: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Appendix A: General Preface to the Wessex Edition of 1912

Appendix B: Bowdlerized Passages from the Graphic

Appendix C: Hardy’s “Saturday Night in Arcady” (1891) and “The Midnight Baptism” (1891)

Appendix D: Hardy’s Map of Wessex (1895)

Appendix E: Hardy’s “Tess’s Lament” (1911)

Appendix F: Contemporary Reviews

  1. From Unsigned, Pall Mall Gazette (31 December 1891)
  2. Clementina Black, Illustrated London News (9 January 1892)
  3. From Unsigned, The Athenaeum (9 January 1892)
  4. From Unsigned [R.H. Hutton], The Spectator (23 January 1892)
  5. From Andrew Lang, The New Review (February 1892)
  6. From Unsigned, Review of Reviews (February 1892)
  7. From Unsigned [Mowbray Morris], The Quarterly Review (April 1892)
  8. From Unsigned, Novel Review (March 1892)
  9. From Grant Allen, Novel Review (July 1892)
  10. From Andrew Lang, Longman’s Magazine (November 1892)
  11. From D.F. Hannigan, The Westminster Review (1892)

Appendix G: Contemporary News

  1. “Execution of the Convict Martha Brown” (14 August 1856)
  2. “Accident” (17 October 1872)
  3. [“The Turberville Coach”] (4 June 1885)
  4. “Shocking Suicide” (2 August 1888)

Appendix H: Contemporary Debates on Women, Sexuality, and Fiction

  1. From Unsigned, “Outrages on Women,” North British Review (May 1896)
  2. From Eliza Lynn Linton, “The Wild Women as Social Insurgents,” The Nineteenth Century (October 1891)
  3. From Eliza Lynn Linton, “The Partisans of the Wild Women,” The Nineteenth Century (March 1892)
  4. From Mona Caird, “A Defense of the So-Called ‘Wild Women,’” The Nineteenth Century (May 1892)
  5. From Unsigned, “Men’s Women in Fiction,” The Westminster Review (May 1898)
  6. From D.F. Hannigan, “Sex in Fiction,” The Westminster Review (1895)

Appendix I: Hardy’s “Candour in English Fiction” (1890)

Appendix J: Excerpts from Hardy’s Autobiography

Works Cited and Recommended Reading

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Audie Award winner Simon Vance's reading is straightforward, well paced, and clear." —-Library Journal Audio Review

Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION

Soon after he completed Tess of the D’Urbervilles in 1891, Thomas Hardy wrote of the novel’s heroine, Tess Durbeyfield, “I lost my heart to her as I went on with her history.” Sadly for Hardy, his affection for his protagonist did not translate into an immediately loving popular reception for his book. Now regarded as a masterwork of realist fiction, Tess of the D’Urbervillesstunned Hardy’s Victorian readership with its frank portrayals of sexual desire and its candid indictment of both divine and human injustice. Today, long after the scandal that surrounded Tess has faded into history, the majesty of Hardy’s artistic achievement endures.

The “fine and handsome” daughter of a poor country peddler, with evidently little more than her brimming emotions and her “large innocent eyes” to distinguish her from the other girls in her home village of Marlott, Tess Durbeyfield might have looked forward to a happy, if uneventful, life. Instead, her father’s poverty and her family’s vain desire to exploit a recently discovered ancestral link to nobility cause Tess to fall under the destructive influence of Alec D’Urberville, a libidinous, unprincipled rake who steals her innocence and impregnates her. With slow, painful effort, Tess strives to recover her reputation and self-respect, and she resolves never again to surrender to passion. Then, into her life walks the captivating Angel Clare, the free-thinking but staunchly virtuous son of an Anglican vicar. Despite her efforts to rein in her sensuous nature and tremendous vitality, Tess falls worshipfully in love with the young man, and he with her. Yet an ominous complication looms: will Angel continue to return her affections once she reveals the disgrace of her sexual past?

Set against the vivid, tempestuous natural canvas of Hardy’s beloved Wessex, Tess of the D’Urbervilles is a gripping tragic romance, as well as an elegiac portrait of a pastoral way of life already under threat from the encroachments of the machine age. But it is also more than this. It is one of the most probingly philosophical novels ever written, meditating deeply on the irresistible forces that drive us toward both passion and pain. With superbly crafted prose, a peerless eye for beauty, and an astonishing moral ruthlessness, Thomas Hardy dissects the emotions of vanity, guilt, desire, and love that dwell deep within us all, elevating the seemingly commonplace struggles of an apparently unexceptional young woman to the very heights of tragedy.

 


ABOUT THOMAS HARDY

The preeminent British novelist of the late Victorian era and one of only a handful of authors to achieve distinction both as a novelist and as a poet, Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Brockhampton in the county of Dorset in 1840. Although he initially considered a career in the ministry, he lost his religious faith in his early twenties and, for a time, pursued a career as an architect. While still an architect, Hardy published such novels as Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), and Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). The latter of these was so successful that he was able to give up architecture and support himself solely as a writer. As a novelist, he is best remembered for his “Wessex” novels, so called because they are set in stark rural landscape of the southwest counties of England, which Hardy renamed Wessex in his fiction. Along with Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), these novels include The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge(1886), The Woodlanders (1887), and Jude the Obscure (1896). In these often sublimely pessimistic novels, Hardy persistently explores the struggle of humankind against the indifferent natural forces that he perceived to dominate life and to thwart our best hopes. Following the deeply hostile receptions that greeted Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, Hardy abandoned the novel for poetry. He went on to publish more than nine hundred poems, in which he continued to express his concerns about human frailty and the power of fate. Hardy died in 1928 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

 


DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
  • The title of Hardy’s novel describes Tess as “a pure woman.” Does Tess, in fact, remain pure? In what respects? Why does Hardy highlight this quality in his title?
     
  • In the “Explanatory Note” that precedes the novel, Hardy writes that Tess of the D’Urbervilles represents “on the whole a true sequence of things” and grew out of his wish “to have it said what everybody thinks and feels.” Can Tess of the D’Urbervilles fairly be called a “truthful” piece of fiction? Are its characters and situations believable? Do you find its underlying philosophy persuasive?
     
  • Some who read Tess of the D’Urbervilles when it was first published in 1891 argued that Tess was a “little harlot” who deserved her death by hanging. Modern readers are rather less likely to respond to Tess so harshly. How do you think the overall change in social mores between 1891 and today affect how you respond to Tess?
     
  • Alec wrongs Tess through his lack of principles. Angel wrongs her with his excess of principles. Which do you see as the more unforgivable betrayal?
     
  • While it may be tempting to think of Alec as a “bad” character and Angel as a “good” one, both experience an inner struggle between spiritual purity and erotic desire—a struggle that neither man wages successfully. Moreover, it is Alec the scoundrel—not Angel the moralist—who is there for Tess when she is in need and who supports her family in a time of crisis. What are the real differences between Alec and Angel? How does Hardy use the two characters to complicate the categories of good and evil?
     
  • Why does Hardy divide his novel in “Phases”? What apparent transformations separate each phase from the last? How does this term encourage us to think about Tess, and what does it say about what Hardy meant to accomplish in his novel and about his view of human development?
     
  • In classical tragedy, the hero is destroyed from within by a tragic flaw in his or her character. Does Tess have a tragic flaw, or is she better understood as a victim of external circumstances?
     
  • Tess’s tragedy is set in motion by her father’s discovery of his noble ancestry. Although Tess herself possesses a kind of natural nobility in addition to her noble heritage, the men in her life continually see her as somehow inferior to them. What does Hardy suggest about the hierarchies that people observe among themselves, whether arising from ancestry, wealth, or gender? What hierarchies seem to exert the greatest influence, and why?
     
  • Today, in most communities, Tess mothering a child out of wedlock would probably be far less of a scandal than it was in Wessex in 1891. While this greater social acceptance would be good news for a modern Tess, it would considerably impact Hardy’s plot. What is the range of tragic art as its traditionally forbidden content becomes acceptable? Can tragedy as a genre exist in a tolerant, permissive culture?
     
  • Many of Hardy’s characters are defined either by their religious beliefs or lack of them. What forms of spirituality are represented in the novel? Which does Hardy appear to favor? Are there any belief systems in the novel that do not, at some point or another, cause harm to the believer or to others? Does Hardy give us any guidance in distinguishing beneficial beliefs from harmful ones?
     
  • Hardy never explains why Tess, after being drugged and raped by Alec, remains with him for several months. How might you account for her decision not to leave him at once?
     
  • When describing Tess’s “moral hobgoblins” in Chapter XIII, Hardy writes, “It was they that were out of harmony with the actual world, not she.” How do you respond to Hardy’s suggestion that civilized society is a moral failure because it is out of tune with the “actual,” or natural world? What, as Hardy sees it, is the essential conflict between society and nature? What would a “natural” morality look like, and would it be an improvement?
     
  • In Chapter XV, Hardy quotes a striking statement from Saint Augustine: that God has “counseled a better course than [He has] permitted;” in other words, God demands more decent conduct from people than can be practiced in the world where he has placed us. How does Hardy’s novel as a whole support this assertion? Do you find it to be true?
     
  • Later in the same chapter, after Tess’s rape by Alec and the death of her baby, Hardy writes that his heroine has “changed from simple girl to complex woman.” Her eyes “more eloquent” and her mind more reflective, she has become a “fine creature.” Hardy even suggests that her mistreatment might be deemed “simply a liberal education.” Is Hardy right to make the seemingly outrageous contention that Tess’s abuse has aided in her growth and improvement? What does he appear to be saying about the natures of suffering and human morality?
     
  • Hardy offers a marked contrast between the pastoral tranquility of Crick’s dairy and the mechanized fury of Groby’s farm, shown particularly in Chapter XLVII. What is Hardy’s opinion of modern technology?
     
  • Is Tess of the D’Urbervilles more accurately seen as a protest against unjust moral and social tenets, or an acknowledgment that such structures will always exist?
     
  • What, finally, is to blame for Tess’s tragedy? Does it stem principally from sexual desire? From her own ready acceptance of the victim’s role? From poor communication? From despicable timing? From her parents’ benighted ambitions? Or does it result, as her brother Abraham suggests, from living on a “blighted” star?
     
  • Near the end of the novel, the doomed Tess suggests that Angel should marry her sister, ’Liza-Lu. Do you think this would be a successful marriage? State your reasons.
     
  • Imagine that you are Tess’s lawyer in her prosecution for the murder of Alec. What arguments would you use, and do you think they would succeed?
     
  • Hardy once wrote, “The best tragedy . . . is that of the worthy encompassed by the inevitable.” Using this definition, or substituting your own, assess whether Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the “best” kinds of tragedy.
     
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