--- product_id: 241289899 title: "Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Chiltern Classic)" price: "₨722" currency: SCR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.sc/products/241289899-tess-of-the-durbervilles-chiltern-classic store_origin: SC region: Seychelles --- # Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Chiltern Classic) **Price:** ₨722 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Chiltern Classic) - **How much does it cost?** ₨722 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sc](https://www.desertcart.sc/products/241289899-tess-of-the-durbervilles-chiltern-classic) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Chiltern creates the most beautiful editions of the World’s finest literature. Your favorite classic titles in a way you have never seen them before: the tactile layers, fine details and beautiful colors of these remarkable covers make these books feel extra special and look striking on any shelf. This hardcover book has a matching blank lined journal (sold separately). They make a great gift when paired together but are also just as beautiful on their own. Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a novel about a poor young woman named Tess Durbeyfield whose father sends her to work for the rich Stoke-d'Urberville family, to whom he mistakenly believes they are related. Alec Stoke-d'Urberville rapes Tess. She returns home, where she gives birth to a child who soon dies. Tess becomes a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy, where she falls in love with Angel Clare, a young intellectual she met years before. On their wedding night, Angel learns about Tess's past and abandons her. Angel leaves for Brazil, then returns to find that Tess has killed Alec. Tess is arrested and hanged. Review: Absolutely Haunting! - 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. Review: Dealing with the Irrevocable - 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! ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #701,280 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #469 in Classic Literature & Fiction #505 in British & Irish Humor & Satire #1,239 in Literary Fiction (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.3 out of 5 stars 10,688 Reviews | ## Images ![Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Chiltern Classic) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81uWTcgTKhL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Absolutely Haunting! *by B***E on March 6, 2011* 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. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Dealing with the Irrevocable *by D***E on December 17, 2018* 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! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great book to gift! *by K***R on May 11, 2026* 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 ## Frequently Bought Together - Chiltern Publishing Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Oxford School Shakespeare: The Tempest - Selected Poems: 1950-2012 --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.sc/products/241289899-tess-of-the-durbervilles-chiltern-classic](https://www.desertcart.sc/products/241289899-tess-of-the-durbervilles-chiltern-classic) --- *Product available on Desertcart Seychelles* *Store origin: SC* *Last updated: 2026-09-04*