Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Chiltern Classic)

This was my first Thomas Hardy book but it will not be the last. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is now one of my all time favorite stories. It's so hard to recommend a book that is at times utterly painful, but it's the effect it has on you that makes it so awesome. I was actually weeping audibly at times. These characters are so real you feel as if you know them. I found myself yelling at them as if somehow I could intervene in their lives. Thomas Hardy is a poetic genious with the ability to create people and places vividly awake in your mind. Is there anyone out there who can write like this anymore? When I say haunting I mean I was effected for days after I closed the book and placed it back on the shelf. This is a classic work of fiction that cannot afford to be missed. Read it! You will be better for having done so. On a lighter note these penguin classic hardcovers are amazingly beautiful. They are my new obsession. This one is no exception and the notes in the back were so helpful.

I am naturally drawn to works of literature that explore the effects of the past on the present. (This, I know, is a tricky statement; some will argue that all works of literature do this in some way.) I trace my obsession with the past to two main factors: I belong to an inherently nostalgic culture, and during my adolescence I moved to a different country. At a crucial moment in my life, in other words, I experienced an event that dramatically accelerated a preexisting tendency. I've quoted a famous line by Faulkner in previous reviews, but I'll do it again: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Thomas Hardy obviously understood this sometimes fascinating, sometimes irritating fact of life. _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ (1891) is the first novel by Hardy that I read in its entirety. My first experience of the author's prose was _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ (1886), which I was supposed to read years ago for a university course on the nineteenth-century novel. I was not able to finish it due to an illness, but I remember being pleasantly surprised. For some reason, I had expected a boring story and a tedious style; instead I found an engaging narrative with a few unexpected twists. I promised myself I would read the novel some day. Years passed, and when I heard that _Tess_ dealt with purity in a fallen world, I felt inclined to read this novel before reattempting _The Mayor of Casterbridge_. Tess is one of the most interesting characters I have encountered in nineteenth-century novels. If Flaubert and Emily Brontë catered to readers' fascination with illicit pleasure and self-destruction, and Jane Austen proved that virtue is far from safe and humdrum, Hardy offers a heroine that is pure, human, and real. Tess is a good girl who makes a mistake through no fault of her own. She is too good for this fallen world. The first quarter of the novel relates the realist equivalent of the story of Little Red Riding Hood. When Tess' father is told that he is the descendant of the noble family of the D'Urbervilles, the young woman's parents send her to a well-off family that bears that name, in the hope of improving their status. The wealthy family, it turns out, has merely adopted the name of D'Urberville, and Tess gains nothing from the experience. On the contrary, she is seduced, ruined, by Alec D'Urberville, who calls her "coz." Years later, Tess meets Mr. Right in the form of Angel Clare (talk about a symbolic name), and the encounter gives rise to the novel's central dilemma. If Tess tells Angel about her past, she may lose her second chance at a happy life. If she does not tell, her new relationship will be based on a lie (or, at least, a hidden truth) that may be made manifest at any moment. Tess' present and future are thus determined by her past. One of the crucial questions that Hardy raises is this novel is: to what extent should a person be judged by one specific past action? _Tess_ owes its transcendence largely to the complexity of the issues it raises. We as readers know that Tess should not be judged by her past mistake. She is innocent, not to blame for what happened to her. Angel, for his part, may not be so sure. On hearing about Tess' mistake, he may come to perceive her as a loose woman, someone not to be trusted. Society condemns Tess because she is a woman; her seducer does not suffer at all the consequences of his action. The situation is complicated by the fact that the society that Hardy portrays is not exactly Christian. For a Christian, the answer to Tess' dilemma is quite simple: she should be open with Angel, as it is preferable that he know the truth from the beginning. If he is to find out later on, as he surely will, he will feel cheated. If Angel judges Tess unjustly, finally, he will be responsible for that. ("In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was.") In the novel, Tess knows (almost instinctively) what to do, but her hesitancy, combined with Angel's optimism, leads to greater conflict. Another major issue treated in _Tess_ has to do with the selfish nature of human attachments. When rehearsing to herself words that are meant for Angel, Tess says: "she you love is not my real self, but one in my image, the one I might have been!" Tess is conscious that Angel does not love her for who she truly is. How many people can say that they love someone for who he/she is? To put it another way, to what extent can we claim to know a person for who he/she really is? All we know is what others choose (consciously and/or unconsciously) to show us. Based on this, we create for ourselves an image of the other person, almost as if we were covering his/her face with a mask. (In psychoanalysis, this mental image we have of another person is referred to as the "imago.") Many times, our perception of the other person is even a reflection of ourselves. We do not see each other face to face. One cannot love what one does not know, and yet how many people can truly say that they even know themselves? Our way of life does not promote this type of knowledge. We are conveniently kept busy. So far I've commented on the novel's moral and psychological dimensions. Let me now mention the style. One may criticize Hardy for many things, among which are his relativism and his pessimism, but he is undoubtedly a master stylist. The beauty of his prose is heightened by its measured quality. He is not excessive; rather, he will dazzle the reader every now and then with a beautiful passage. For instance: "It was a fine September evening, just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hair-like lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without aid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects that dance in it." Consider also the following meditation: "Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order." The actual explanation may be simple (the law of cause and effect), but this does not diminish the beauty of the prose. Philosophy is a different matter. At the risk of sounding simplistic, I believe much of Hardy's worldview may be summarized with the paraphrase, "Fate acts in mysterious ways." Why not five stars? I feel the novel could have been 100 pages shorter. The world it describes is rather small, so small, in fact, that serendipity plays a pretty large--and unfortunately not always believable--role. _Tess_ is great realist fiction, but it is not _Middlemarch_. At the same time, the heroine herself is memorable and unique. Like Dostoevsky's _The Idiot_, this novel seeks to trace the effects of a corrupt world on a pure individual. Hardy is a much more effective narrator than Dostoevsky, however, and personally the story of an innocent woman appeals to me more than that of an innocent man. My next Hardy novel will be _The Mayor of Casterbridge_. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the book!

I haven't read this book yet, but I have to say...it is the prettiest, most quality book I have ever owned! This would make a lovely gift for bookworm friends. The details in the binding, the textured cover, the glossy pages and rounded corners are exceptionally lovely

"Tess of the D'Urbervilles" is Thomas Hardy's most famous protagonist and one of literature's most tragic heroines. At first, she reminded me very much of Ibsen's Nora, but as the book came to a close I came to realize that Tess is far more emotionally complex than Nora: much moodier, much prouder, much more romantic, and ultimately much more tragic. The story is pretty well-known to most people. Tess is a young beautiful maiden who has a lazy drunk for a father and a manipulative opportunist as a mother. At a young tender and naive age she is essentially raped by her well-to-do cousin, and it's a stigma that haunts her in the small-minded provincial town where she lives. She soon meets the man of her dreams, a clergyman's romantic son who finds a kindred soul in Tess, and while Tess does her best to maintain her distance eventually she gives way to her passion, and marries Angel Clare. Though she has lost her virginity to another man Tess remains pure and free, and against the warnings of her mother she forces herself to tell her new husband of her past. And because her husband is very young, very proud, and ultimately constricted and contained by the conservative pettiness of the people around him he decides to flee from Tess. And this sets the stage for Tess's ultimate downfall. The themes and plot of this novel have been copied copiously in Western culture, but what makes this novel such a masterpiece is the emotional force and beauty of Tess's characters, and it would be almost impossible for anyone else to replicate the sincere sympathy Hardy has for his most famous heroine. Literary critics can always point to the depth in meaning and symbolism of the novel -- the themes of innocence, spirituality, and romantic passion course wildly throughout the novel -- but it's Tess's sense and pursuit of love, her utter and pure and completion to the man she loves, that will continue to move readers for centuries to come.

I had been warned about Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I was not to expect a happily ever after. What I didn’t expect was to feel the misery that is Tess throughout the whole entire book. You will not get a break. You will not feel good (except at Talbothay’s), and you will live in a bubble of frustration throughout the book. Enjoy! There is no disputing that Hardy was a talented story-teller or that this book for the time it was written was groundbreaking by addressing and challenging the social construct of the time, but that aside there was nothing enjoyable about this novel and my frustration levels were so high, I thought I might toss my Kindle across the room. WARNING: Spoilers ahead!! * * * * * Let us start from the beginning. Sir John finds out he is, in fact, Sir John D’Urberville. What’s in a name when you witness a drunkard father with delusions of grander strolling around his town after being told of his ancient lineage? The idea that somehow blood makes you more superior to another human being. Horse excrement. Moving along… I find it hard to believe that Tess, having the amount of brothers and sisters under her household, could be that naïve about the birds and the bees so to speak…but here we are. It was a sign of the times I’m sure. Keep thy maidens as ignorant as possible in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost I guess. This inevitably leads her to get knocked-up by the playboy, Alec to which we’re not entirely sure because of the vagueness of the scene that transpired. I hadn’t really figured out what happened until she’s nursing her child in a field in Marlott. This part confuses me to no end. Alec—despite being a playboy and a rake and an utter a-hole (‘xuse my French)—offers her marriage. It never seemed to me that he was going to deny her anything despite her being with child (which we find out he didn’t know about at all). Ultimately in the end, she ends up having to go back to him anyway. Full circle. The story could have ended right here. Fast forward, she loses her child and seeks employment 40 + miles away at Talbothay’s where she meets Angel Clare. They fall madly in love with each other. He asks her repeatedly to marry him but she wrestles with telling him about her past and therefore refuses over and over and over and over. Heeding the advice of her mother, she refrains from telling Angel about her prior circumstances until after they wed. Honestly? Not what I would have done. What did she have to lose? She apparently lost him anyway. She might as well have told him. And let’s talk about that, shall we? Angel, Angel. You pompous douchebag, Angel. He goes on to confess (after the wedding) that he had a two-day affair in which he proceeded to screw his brains out and then felt bad about it afterwards. Notice, no mention of the other woman. Then, Tess takes that as her queue to let everything out and what does our boy Angel, do??? Turns into a complete macho a-hole. I mean, I get why he is upset. Naturally. But if one of your options is to move to the Colonies where no one would be the wiser about your wife’s past a whole ocean away, do you not love Tess enough to move there and start a new life since you were thinking about doing that anyway? Goodness. The first test of your wedding vows and your impulse is to go to BRAZIL?! Lord help me with this one. And speaking of Brazil. I nearly lost it. I completely lost it when he asked Izz to, in short, live with him in sin in Brazil because he was in fact “living in sin” with a wife who had lost her virginity already. So, let me get this straight, Angel. You want to flee from living in sin to…live in sin? Did I get that right? :::screams::: So, more misery unfolds until we are presented with Alec the good witch converting to Christianity (Protestantism?? I don’t know. Pick a religion), he sees Tess and POOF! He falls in love with her again and stalks her while her family falls into despair from her father’s death (Sir John…hah! Bull excrement right there) and she ultimately goes with him because he was her last hope since Angel is frolicking around in Brazil acting a fool. 5 years later (:::Facepalm:::), Angel comes back to find her with Alec at an Inn, he travels aaaaaaaaaall that way for her and to claim his wife, and when he finds her with Alec, he basically shrugs and walks away…. WHAT THE #%^K?! So our girl Tess, who has to take everything upon herself because she’s surrounded by b!+ch boys, immediately murders Alec in an effort to be with her one true love. See, Angel? That’s how it’s done. And to add to all the oddness of this whole entire plot, they end up…wait for it…in Stonehenge. :::rolls eyes::: Stonehenge???? Lord have mercy. There, she gets arrested for killing Alec but not before she makes the request to marry her little sister. Based on the very vague final chapter, I suppose that’s what happens which is further odd. You mean to tell me, Angel, that you were worried about what society might think of you and your non-virginal wife and you go and marry your dead, murderous wife’s sister? I’m sure the town will be quiet about that one. As you’ve gathered by now, this was not the book for me. Spare me the lecture about how this book is a work of art. How dare I! Blah, blah, blah. There’s enough misery in the world. When I dive into a book, I want to get away from it.

Tess's is a story not unique or exceptional for her time. A beautiful young woman of pure heart and mind, unaware of the world's manipulative forces and completely unequipped to protect herself, falls victim to the hands of a rich spoiled brat who is used to getting his own way, one way or another, and shows no regard for the impact of his actions on the girl's entire life. Consequently, the victim is laden with the blame and the disgrace that follows it as society has no intention of addressing the crime in the hands of the one who committed it. What makes Tess's story stand out is the amount of dignity on her behalf and the force of social critique Th.Hardy instills in her story, one that caused quite a stir in the writer's time. Vividly described in all aspects, the reader is given a fully representative picture of the time, the place, the people as well as the social rules that bide their lives. The scenery lives and breathes along with the story, representing by itself the different stages Tess's life goes through. Sad times to happier times to purgatorial closure, equally felt in the description of Marlott, the Vale of Froom and Flintcomb-Ash. The canvas on which everything is unravelled is the personal anguish and inner turmoil of each and every character in a world wherein a look speaks volumes and a single step makes a thunderbolt of a statement. Great drama within every soul, unselfishly remaining within by conformity to the rules thus doomed to never rebel outwards in full intensity. All characters are fully developed with clear outlines, obtaining substance and easily materialising before the reader's eyes. You know them, you understand them, even when you plainly disagree with their state of mind or course of action. You cannot be left untouched by the superficiality and opportunism that characterises Tess's parents as they send her as a lamb straight into the wolf's den or by the anxiety and concern of Angel's parents, no matter how at fault their actions are against him. Even the supporting roles are fully grown characters. In the same way Alec is representative of Tess's first leg of this ordeal, the Dairyman is such so of the whole phase of atonement and stability while Farmer Groby represents the whole turnaround of Tess's life into degradation and punishment after Angel's torturing retreat. More so, the 3 girls at the Dairy, downsized to two later on, are a vital relief as they discretely fulfill Tess's lack of family presence. Overall, all characters - primary and supporting - are realistic and well-defined, consistent with their build and representative of their roles. The ones immediately affected all grow and learn and evolve while the rest remain true to their outlines as they should. The ending maintains the balance as no-one contemporary with this novel would accept such a moral trespassing left unaddressed no matter how much injustice there is within the justice demanded. No matter how deserving of happiness Tess is, the world order of morality of her time demands to be satisfied, demands punishment for a crime undeservingly thrown upon her and satisfaction will be granted eventually. But Tess, being true to herself, she chooses to be punished for a crime she does own in all consciousness and no more for the one committed against and not by her. Eventually society feels good with itself as "justice" is served and the reader feels exhilarated even if bitterly so, as their heroine performs a sacrificial but heroic exodus of her own choosing, liberating her own self from a world that turned its back to her without a second thought. A classic read with very descriptive language, dense and well-structured. Definitely not as lyrical as Dickens's but still enjoyable to read aloud, some parts in particular. A bit challenging to the untrained eye but it grows into you fairly quickly. Overall, Tess is a wonderful read - dark, sad but deeply felt - with amazing character depth even in the supporting roles leaving equally strong impressions from the social critique interwoven throughout the whole story. I would definitely reccommend it to all lovers of British classics who won't mind the dark atmosphere and the realistic lack of escape from the tragic closure as it leaves you with the bitter taste that indeed all is settled.

Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a classic. Although the difficulties Tess and her family faced are very different from what we are aware of day to day in the United States, the differences between the poor and the rich are commonly understood and therefore hold modern readers' interest as well.

This was my first Hardy novel and I immediately understood why he considered one of the greats. The story of Tess is challenging to read at some points due to the unfortunate hand life has dealt her. However, you fall in love with the protagonist and must find out how the story ends. Hardy's use of language, and overall story telling, are absolutely amazing. I couldn't put this one down. I loved it so much I'm now reading 'the Woodlanders' with plans to read 'Far From the Madding Crowd' and 'the Mayor of Casterbridge'. As an aside I am really enjoying 'the Woodlanders' too. Ps. If you're worried about the books age or use of unfamiliar language, don't be. I found Hardy's use of language very digestible and his themes were relevant and timeless. Brilliant read!

''Tess of the D'Urbervilles'' is a tragic love story about a young married couple who separate from each other when just after their marriage the girl reveals to her husband her secret that she is not a ''maiden'' anymore. I enjoyed it although I skipped several pages due to their abundance of unnecessary detailed descriptions. It was not an exciting read but very satisfying. If you are familiar with Anthony Trollope, you'll see that ''Tess of the D'Urbervilles'' is like a concise version of his novels, which are usally very voluminous, but much, much better.

Amazing! Good book! A nice classic, and lovely to read. The book itself is perfect, penguin classics is my favorite, the cover is fun. Love the chickens and the colors. Good, and readable. Perfect!

Very good book

"The art of our necessities is strange, that can make vile things precious"—this maxim of King Lear’s is well demonstrated in Hardy’s novel, as the ultimate consequences of Tess and her parents’ proceedings force her to embrace the proposal of the man whom she loathed and blamed for all her tribulations. Nevertheless, while Alec was indeed a reprobate, he had no clue as to the extent of the mischief he wrought on Tess’s life, since she chose to run away in silence and bear the burden on her own rather than avail herself of the situation and fulfill her parents’ whim to have her become the wife of a rich, distant relation of a glorious lineage. Fine, Alec was reckless by nature (and, if he bore the name D’Urberville, it was because his father had liked the sound of it, thus assuming it just to impress rustics more ignorant than himself, yet not having the shred of a rightful claim to it), but we can’t say of Alec that he also was deceitful or maintain positively that he would have shirked his duty to Tess. Inasmuch as he made no promises whatever, he couldn’t break any, right? Now Tess, out of shame and pride, resumes her position of dairymaid. Later on, out of fear, and in accordance with her mother’s advice regarding her past imprudence, she withheld her confession about her liaison with Alec to her new suitor, Angel. So far, so good. Yet, once they are married, Tess discloses her secret to Angel, trusting he would understand and forgive it, considering that he had been the first to reveal to her that he had been through a misadventure of the kind before meeting her in the fields. Then her troubles begin again. Poor Tess! her honesty proved her downfall! This is a story wherein temptation both corrupts as well as redeems the souls of simple people: her parents’ greed led to Tess's exposure to vice; Tess’s charms inflamed Alec’s desire; her candour and diligence captivated Angel’s heart; her beauty once more roused Alec, undoing his recent conversion to Christianity, and on learning what Tess had concealed from him four years ago, he is bent on making amends; and Tess, in despite of her animosity towards Alec, after her separation from her husband, could not help accepting the culprit back in order to rescue her family from the ruin brought about by her own faults as well as her father’s mundane pretensions. In the end, Tess avenges her returned husband Angel’s honour by thrusting a knife into the heart of her false saviour—and through this act she definitely substantiated the notion that she was a descendant of the ancient, though decayed and savage, D’Urbervilles, to the spreading of which fact, in the hopes of receiving assistance from antiquarians, for the sake of the restorarion of said lineage, her father directed his efforts until he died, instead of working like everyone else in the country. At any rate, his belief turned out to be correct, however absurd his expectations on that account. A tragic tale, no doubt, yet the manner in which Hardy tells it may soothe you as though a leaf that is swayed by a gentle breeze.

Love the matt finish of the cover and the quality of the paper that has been used for the pages. Soft cover.