The Victorian novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is most famous today for his novels Far from the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and other works set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex.

Bathsheba Everdene is a headstrong young woman who attracts the attentions of a succession of ill-matched suitors: a quiet sheep farmer, a handsome soldier and an older, wealthy landowner. As the men vie for her affections, she struggles to retain her independence of spirit in the face of their declarations.

Introducing readers to the fictional county of Wessex, Thomas Hardy's fourth work of fiction was one of his greatest triumphs, both commercially and critically. Its tale of

passion, jealousy and unrequited love is now regarded as one of the finest novels of the nineteenth century, and one of the greatest love stories of all time.

Far from the Madding Crowd is the first of Thomas Hardy's great novels, and the first to sound the tragic note for which his fiction is best remembered.