Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
	List Price:   $8.00 Unit Price:   $6.40 You Save:   $1.60 (20%) ISBN-10:   0141439653 ISBN-13:   9780141439655 Publisher:   Penguin Group (USA) Inc; Penguin Classics Category:   Young Adults Pub. Date:   April 2003 Pages:   480 Format:   B-Trade Pbk Ages:   18 to Grades:   12 to
Awards
2005  Quill Awards  Nominee/Honoree  1989  Toronto Book Awards  Winner!  2001  Toronto Book Awards  Nominee/Honoree  2002  International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award  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
Set in his fictional Wessex countryside in southwest England, Far from the Madding Crowd was Thomas Hardy's breakthrough work. Though it was first published anonymously in 1874, the quick and tremendous success of Far from the Madding Crowd persuaded Hardy to give up his first profession, architecture, to concentrate on writing fiction. The story of the ill-fated passions of the beautiful Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors offers a spectacle of country life brimming with an energy and charm not customarily associated with Hardy. This is the story of Bathsheba Everdene, who inherits her uncle's farm, then surprises the villagers of Weatherbury by deciding to run it herself rather than hire a manager. Three men vie for the affections of this independent young woman. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Rosemarie Morgan with Shannon Russell. Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her confident presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted Shepard Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and when tragedy ensues, the stability of the whole community is threatened. The first of his works set in Wessex, Thomas Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. This edition, based on Hardy's original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candour and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan's introduction discusses the history of its publication, and the Biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel.