Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy; Suzanne Keen
	List Price:   $5.95 Unit Price:   $4.76 You Save:   $1.19 (20%) ISBN-10:   0451528565 ISBN-13:   9780451528568 Publisher:   Penguin Group (USA) Inc; Signet Classics Category:   Young Adults Pub. Date:   October 2002 Pages:   400 Format:   Mass Market
Awards
2005  School Library Journal Best Books of the Year  Winner!  2006  Commonwealth Writers Prize  Nominee/Honoree  2005  Los Angeles Times Book Prizes  Nominee/Honoree  2005  Quill Awards  Nominee/Honoree  2007  Great Lakes Book Awards  Winner!
Subjects
BRITISH AND IRISH FICTION (FICTIONAL WORKS BY ONE AUTHOR) FICTION_ROMANCE_GENERAL WESSEX (ENGLAND)_FICTION
Description/Notes
There is in England no more real or typical district than Thomas Hardy's imaginary Wessex, the scattered fields and farms of which were first discovered in Far from the Madding Crowd. It is here that Gabriel Oak observes Bathsheba, the young mistress of Weatherbury Farm, fall victim to her amorous caprices. He stands by her through one marriage to a handsome, corruptly sentimental sergeant. Selflessly altruistic, he sees her through another betrothal to her compulsive, puritanical neighbor-as unaware as she of the stroke of Fate that will effect their ultimate union. Published anonymously and first attributed to George Eliot, Far from the Madding Crowd won Hardy immediate success; it combines an architecturally perfect plot with the philosophical overtones that were to set the theme for all his later works. The text of this Signet Classic is set from Hardy's revised final version of Far from the Madding Crowd , published in 1912 in the authoritative Wessex edition. This updated authoritative edition of the classic Hardy novel, which was published anonymously and first attributed to George Eliot, is set from Hardy's revised, unedited final draft of 1912 and features a new Introduction and Afterword. A young man falls victim to his own obsession with an amorous farm girl in this classic novel of fate and unrequited love. Published anonymously and first attributed, erroneously, to George Eliot, this Signet Classic version is set from Hardy's revised final draft-the authoritative Wessex edition of 1912. Hardy's first masterpiece, this 1874 novel received wide acclaim upon publication and remains among the author's best-loved works. The tale of a passionate, independent woman and her three suitors, it explores Hardy's trademark themes: thwarted love, the inevitability of fate, and the encroachment of industrial society on rural life.