Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was born at Higher Bockhampton in Dorset, the son of a builder, and trained as an architect before turning to fiction. Far from the Madding Crowd, his fourth novel, was his first great success and the first to use the name Wessex. His later novels include The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure; after 1895 he wrote poetry, including The Dynasts. He received the Order of Merit in 1910.
“Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other’s character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality.”
Gabriel Oak, a young shepherd farming his own small flock on Norcombe Hill, falls in love with Bathsheba Everdene, a proud, lively girl staying with her aunt nearby. She saves his life when he nearly suffocates in his smoky hut, but refuses his plain proposal, saying she wants somebody to tame her.
Jude Fawley is an orphan boy raised by his great-aunt Drusilla in the downland village of Marygreen. When the schoolmaster Richard Phillotson leaves for the university city of Christminster, Jude fixes his hopes on following him.
