Far from the Madding Crowd (Modern Library Classics)

Book Description

Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy’s passionate tale of the beautiful, headstrong farmer Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors, firmly established the thirty-four-year-old writer as a popular novelist. According to Virginia Woolf, “The subject was right; the method was right; the poet and the countryman, the sensual man, the sombre reflective man, the man of learning, all enlisted to produce a book which . . . must hold its place among the great English novels.” Introducing the fictional name of “Wessex” to describe Hardy’s legendary countryside, this early masterpiece draws a vivid picture of rural life in southwest England.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1912 Wessex edition and features Hardy’s map of Wessex.

Customer Reviews:

HARDY CLASSIC.......2007-05-07

EXCELLENT-HARDY DOES A WONDERFUL JOB OF DEVELOPING CHARACTERS AND PLOT-HE'S AN EXCELLENT WRITER

Forces of Nature.......2006-07-10

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, the first of Thomas Hardy's 'Wessex' novels, tells the story of a small troupe of farmers and their workers in a sheep-farming community in the fictitious county of 'Wessex'.

Gabriel Oak has been a shepherd since his teenage years, as his father was before him, but he's moved up and purchased, on credit, his own farm. The work is hard, but he is confident that he will succeed, and takes pride in being his own man. Then one day, a new woman arrives in town. Bathsheeba Everdene is beautiful, headstrong, intelligent, but incurably vain; Farmer Oak falls in love with her immediately. A few months later, he proposes, and is utterly rejected. Bathsheeba moves on to care for her dying uncle, and take over his farm. Gabriel continues farming - until tragedy strikes.

He and Bathsheeba will cross paths again, this time not as lovers, but as mistress and servant. Bathsheeba's beauty, vanity and impetuousness leave a trail of carnage in her wake, and Gabriel can only watch on as lives are destroyed, farms are ruined, and his own heart is crushed repeatedly.

Hardy is famous for his fatalism, and this is displayed no more than in the character of Bathsheba Everdene. She is not an evil person, as the above summary would suggest - but her stunning beauty and fierce intelligence combine with her vanity and impulsivity to create something like a force of nature, and though she means only good she seems to be able to do nothing but wrong by those who care for her. She has no more control over her nature than she does over the weather. One of the most interesting aspects of this character is that her vices - vanity, impulsivity, which Hardy attributes to her being young and beautiful - lead to the downfall of others, but she is continuously saved from downfall by her own intelligence and inner personal strength.

REal tragedy finally does strike Bathsheba, but rather than let it destroy her as retribution for her wicked ways, she grows from it. We may not be able to escape the hardship of life, Hardy seems to be saying, but we can grow and prosper by learning from it.

This was a fantastically entertaining book. The only warning that I could give with it is that it is slow-moving. The action comes in fits and spurts, and Hardy has a penchant for elaborate descriptions of the countryside, for farmhouses, churches and festivals. They are beautifully written, but take time to digest fully. Highly recommended.

No need for titles.......2005-11-30

vivid, lucidly written, conjuring up images of serene hillsides and country life at every opportunity; you never feel less than a central part of the story, being able, thanks to Hardy's joyous descriptions, to picture every scne and character in the greatest of detail and desiring nothing more than to join the number of Wessex's inhabitants. Truly a wonderful book.

A masterpiece of brilliant fiction .......2005-10-04

This book has everything - sumptuous and beautiful prose, brilliantly realized characters, a magnificent page-turning plot, superb use of the English language, and a relatively happy ending. If you ever thought Thomas Hardy was not for you, read this book, it will change your mind forever. A classic among classics. Hardy's ability to construct sentences that perfectly convey the message is second to none. His use of vocabulary, his powers of decription, and his uncanny insight into human nature will make you practially weep with envy.

Far From Ordinary.......2004-03-27

Hardy is not my favorite author by any stretch of the imagination, but this is a work of beauty. Unlike other Victorian works (like those of Jane), "Far From the Madding Crowd" leave the chattering jiberish of scheming aristocrats behind to focus on the drama of the country and the working class. Also, this novel explores the "Woman Question" of the day (place in society) and presents a strong willed lead that breaks many of the molds of the time. Loyalty, love, loss, and understanding are all very beautifully and strongly discussed as well. A novel that should be required reading for all students.

Far from the Madding Crowd (Signet Classics)

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My favorite English Novelist
We Pull Our Own Strings
Forces of Nature
Far from the Madding Crowd
Literature after all, moreover nostalgic

Far from the Madding Crowd (Signet Classics)
Thomas Hardy , and Suzanne Keen
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0451528565

Book Description

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.

Customer Reviews:

My favorite English Novelist.......2006-09-04

Why?--Because there is the class struggle, the positioning for marriage, sexual passion, and jealousy and characters that relate to the common man. There are too many coincidences in this book and there seems to miss the tragic inevitability of Tess or Jude but still a wonderful book.

We Pull Our Own Strings.......2006-08-25

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD is the only novel by Thomas Hardy in which the majority of the characters do not crash into chaos and tragedy. In fact, it ends on an up note with a long anticipated marriage. This is not to say that this is a comic novel; there is no such thing for Hardy, but before his world view had totally ossified in his later books, here at least he was able to end with his major characters reaching some happy resolution.

The setting of the book is the village of Weatherbury, a place that resonated nostalgically with his readers as a recently lost pastoral Eden, where mechanization and industrialization had not yet taken sway. It is here that his characters, as always, either rise in harmony with the immemorial earth or fall in conflict with it. The novel opens with the appearance of Gabriel Oak, whose name allies him to the eternal rich soil underneath his farmer's soiled boots. He is in harmony with nature and lives by its natural laws. Enter Bathsheba Everdene, the heroine, who does not. She is proud, willful, and more than a bit of a flirt. When he proposes marriage, she rejects him. Later, she flirts outrageously with the wealthy older William Boldwood, and when he understandably responds, rejects him too. Later she meets the handsome, dashing soldier, Sergeant Troy, but decides to marry him, mostly because of his sexual appeal, which Hardly emphasizes in Troy's Freudian penchant for twirling his sword directly under her nose. Hardy injects what soon proves to be his usual tragic plot complications and lethal coincidences. Bathsheba encounters Fanny, the former lover of her husband, who has a child by him and conveniently and melodramatically dies right in front of her house. Troy dashes off for parts unknown in disgrace over the incident only to reappear a year later where he is shot to death by Boldwood, who in turn winds up as insane in a mental institution. The concluding marriage between the now widowed Bathsheba and Oak seems forced and totally unconvincing, especially since she spent the better part of the novel expatiating on their inherent incompatibilities.

In this early work, Hardy was setting in motion those forces that in future books would have a tragic hue much more somber than here. For Hardy, the essence of tragedy is the complex relationship that his characters maintain with nature. Those who call him the poet/novelist of gloom and doom are slightly off the mark here. In the actions that they take, they choose to throw pebbles into a pool that is deceptively and lethally shallow. As the pebbles land, the waves spread out and intersect with other and similar waves, causing unexpected tragic complications. Nature is that pool and the pebbles are the purposeful actions taken by those who ought to know better, but in Hardy's world, of course, they do not. His people suffer all the time, but they do so in a manner for which they must assume partial blame. The marriage of Gabriel and Bathsheba will be the last happy moment for any of Hardy's characters in all the rest of his books.

Forces of Nature.......2006-07-10

Far from the Madding Crowd.......2006-02-12

Thomas Hardy, born in Dorset, England in 1840, is one of the greatest writers from the United Kingdom. He wrote "Far from the Madding Crowd" when he was 34 and the book was an instant success.

The book reflects the author's affection for rural (country) people (rustic folk) at a time when the industrial revolution was in full swing. Thomas Hardy lived in London and he and his middle class town dwellers liked to escape from the madding crowd of the city to the rural fantasy land. With the hustle and bustle of living in growing towns and cities, Hardy and many in the middle class yearned for the serenity of rural life, although Hardy tended to idealise such life. However, even the rural life was changing with new railway lines cutting through the countryside.

The book is set in Weatherbury, where most people had never left the village. Hence there is continuity of rural life without much disturbance until newcomers like Troy and Bathsheba arrive.

Life in the rural areas is tough characterised by long working hours and few holidays. People hardly have the opportunity for advancement and poverty was always a threat. The poor could get refuge in the dreaded workhouse where one could get the bare minimum food and shelter and highlighted by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist.

The main characters in the book are:

* Gabriel Oak, a young farmer who is practical and is outdoor most of the time. He is good humoured, hard working and expert in farming. He is ruined when most of his sheep die. He has to go and seek work and on his way, he fights a straw-rick fire and is hired by Bathsheba, the owner.
* Bathsheba Everdene is a beautiful but vain lady who inherits a farm in Weatherbury. She sends a valentine as a joke to Boldwood, a serious minded farmer. Boldwood falls in love with Bathsheba, after receiving her valentine, but Bathsheba rejects him and this sets in motion a series of events that ultimately leads to tragedy in the usually serene Weatherbury.
* Troy, a flirtatious visitor from the Army, with a dashing red uniform that has a powerful romantic appeal to young Bathsheba, seduces her with his charm, flattery and swordplay.

The book ends on a happy note when Gabriel and Bathsheba marry, with the approval of the rural folk.

Literature after all, moreover nostalgic.......2005-09-07

This book is always successful to give you an idea about humour that is not ethno-specific and is in keeping with the airs of classic literary treatments of all forms. Humour elicited by a kind of enlightenment and a vision. For us, in the once colonized parts of the world, it paints an England which is real but still evocative of dreams we had of the landscapes through children`s books. If literature is to be popularized again, if classics are to be introduced again,well, this book has clues in it as to what fascinates people and at the same time help them grow with literature. Diversity of civilizations are disappearing, conflicts notwithstanding. World has lost something in terms of its charms. The migratory workers are making it uniform, faceless, convenience driven. Language, expression, social relations are becoming indistinct and dull. The book evokes nostalgia in good measure.
The main characters are not main, the plot is trivial but the sincerity and dexterity with which the characters are created, the dialogues are planned and every bit of action interpreted refering to the psychological elements involved, is classical and timeless. Every lover will learn or understand something from it and remember many situations and for everybody are Hardy's quips in a lighter vein.A model!

Average customer rating:

Great copy of a good novel
Great book, awful editing...
This book is worth reading, a terific love story!
Forget the infamous "love triangle"...
Wild and wooly in Wessex

Far From The Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy
Manufacturer: HarperLargePrint
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060956968

Book Description

It's Time To Rediscover
The Wonderful Books
We All Cherish.

First published in 1874, Far from the Madding Crowd was Thomas Hardy's first commerically successful novel. Set in the fictional Wessex countryside in the 1840s, it tells the story of the beautiful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene. Forced to choose between three suitors, Bathsheba makes a disastrous decision, which leads to both tragedy and true love.

Far from the Madding Crowd remains one of the most enduring English novels of our time, and one of Hardy's most popular.

Download Description

"It is among such communities as these that happiness will find her last refuge on earth..". Against this backdrop Hardy tells a vivid story of life in rural Wessex which centres on the independent and beautiful Bathsheba Everdene. She decides to manage the farm she has inherited and finds herself in a powerful position for a woman of the 1840s. But power brings tragic complications when she has to decide between three rival suitors.

Customer Reviews:

Great copy of a good novel.......2006-03-27

The norton critical edition was very useful for this novel. Having all the background about the novel as well as all the footnotes throughout the novel really aided me in my understanding of the novel. Without the information in these footnotes, the book would not have had the same meaning for me. The book itself was also very good, although a bit difficult to read. It was very interesting and it led me to a better understanding of the Victorian era and trials ordinary men at that time had to go through. A good read.

Great book, awful editing..........2006-02-15

This is a wonderful classic for many reasons. But, I urge you not to read this edition, because the notes are terrible! There are notes for things that are obvious, and a lack for those things which need them. The worst offense, however, is that one of the notes (which readers are likely to check, as it gives background on a forgotten song sung by one of the main characters) gives away not only the important action of that short chapter, but also gives away the main line of the story. Awful, awful editing...

This book is worth reading, a terific love story!.......2004-12-11

i do think it's a wonderful fiction! in the process of reading this book, i was captivated by the twisted development of the story and also Hardy's mastery language. it gives you a great picture of beautiful scenery in rural England, and there is romance, expections for what happens next. i really enjoy it !

Forget the infamous "love triangle"..........2004-03-03

In Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy introduces us to the precarious "love square". At the core of all the turmoil is beautiful farm girl, Bathsheba Everdene - spirited, vain, intelligent and adept at toying with the hearts of men. Inevitably beguiled by her charms a humble and kind farmer, Gabriel Oak, fervently attempts to win Bathsheba's affections. Enter the competition: (suitor#2) Farmer Boldwood - a wealthy and temperate middle-aged man respected in the community, eventually plunges into maniacal obsession at the mere possibility of making the beloved Miss Everdene his wife; and (suitor#3) Sergeant Francis Troy - a dashing young philandering soldier, with his share of inner demons, ruthlessness and vanity, vies for Bathsheba's hand in marriage. Bathsheba's ultimate decision, and the cataclysm it evokes, lies at the epicenter of Hardy's unforgettable ambivalent story.
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy's fourth novel, saw publication in 1874 and earned him widespread popularity as a writer. A delicately woven tale of unrequited love and regret, set in the mid-19th century, Far From the Madding Crowd is a masterpiece of pure story-telling. Hardy's classic style is a pleasure to read as he masterfully brings his characters and their dealings to life. I would not hesitate to say it definitely captured my heart as another favourite.

Wild and wooly in Wessex.......2003-10-31

Few literary settings are more distinctive than Thomas Hardy's Wessex, a hilly, chalky, bucolic quilt of pastures and villages occupying the southwest of England, its residents sworn to the immutable cultural traditions of centuries long past. But it is not the goal of "Far from the Madding Crowd" to be merely a sentimental portrait of a region for which Hardy has a great affection, but a grandiose drama about the eventual union of a man and the woman he loves. In summary, Hardy does accede to a Happily Ever After ending, but how he gets to this point is why his novel deserves to be read.

It's not surprising that the novel was originally attributed to George Eliot because the protagonist, Gabriel Oak, as the novel's moral anchor, is very similar in character to Eliot's Adam Bede. Oak is trying to make a living on his own as a farmer, but a stroke of bad luck compels him to take a job as a shepherd for a beautiful young woman named Bathsheba Everdene who has recently inherited her uncle's farm and commands a large number of workers and servants. Oak iconically personifies the rustic setting, not only because of his surname but because of the intimacy with which he communes with nature, and his fondness for playing the flute seems designed to evoke an image of Pan.

Oak has an awkward history with Bathsheba -- he had known her before her windfall, but in her independent spirit she spurned his love. As the head of Weatherbury farm, however, she can't get by on her independence alone, and she needs Oak's expertise in ensuring her sheep are healthy and fit for wool production. Her romantic attention turns toward a profligate soldier named Francis Troy who, through an unlikely error, has just barely avoided wedding Fanny Robin, one of the Weatherbury servants. Bathsheba's eventual marriage to Troy breaks the hearts of Oak and another rival, a neighboring farmer named Boldwood whose affections she had once teased and whose obsessive nature erupts at a most climactic moment in the novel.

The plot developments are a flamboyant display of contrivance, but Hardy masters his devices so well it's impossible not to go along with him for the ride. As an example, consider the jilted Fanny who is so weary from sickness that she has to use a dog as a crutch to get to her destination where she finally dies; not until Hardy reveals what's written on the lid of her coffin do we (and Oak) realize the role Troy played in her death. Likewise, Troy's impulsive reaction to this incident seems like a purposely destructive measure that intends to stir even more turbulence into the story.

Book Description

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Rosemarie Morgan with Shannon Russell.

Customer Reviews:

One of the All-Time Greats of English Lit.......2007-06-21

A new bride, a screwdriver and the coffin in the sitting room -- if for no other reason, this book is a MUST for that scene.

I take issue with the reviewer who described Bathsheba as "not an evil person," but rather "a force of nature." In fact, she's the protagonist of the story. Like any tragic hero, she's flawed, and by her own unique brand of hubris. With her spunkiness, grit, beauty and abject stupidity about men, she's more of a thinking person's Scarlett O'Hara, if you ask me.

My first Hardy novel, and will not be the last.......2006-12-10

It took me a while to get into the author's style of writing, along with the dialect of the country folk, but once into it and the story it was very enjoyable. There are times where the author goes on with descriptions of the countryside, farming life, etc. and the story lulls a bit at those times, but then picks up again.

All in all well told and I am looking forward to more from this author.

Forces of Nature.......2006-07-10

Read this Classic and escape for several hours life's madding hour!.......2006-05-02

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is one of the glories of English Literature. Hardy wrote this novel in serial form for the Cornhill magazine edited by Leslie Stephen (father of novelist Virginia Woolf). In this Penguin Classic editon the editors have chosen to present the novel in the manuscript form in which Hardy first wrote it. The book is, therefore, free of the changes made by the Cornhill staff in which they sought to remove any improper language and changed some of the names.
The book was made into an outstanding movie in 1967 with Julie Christie as Bathsheba who has to choose three lovers. The bellicose sexy sergeant Frank Troy; the stolid and mentally disturbed rich farmer Boldwood and the reliable shepherd Gabriel Oak. What ensues is a tragedy filled with those ironical situations so beloved of the sceptical mind of Thomas Hardy.
All Hardy novels set in his mythical Wessex are filled with
rural humorous types and include many allusions culled from the
Bible and mythological subjects.
Hardy was greatest when he described the lush English countryside of southern England. His evocations of dawn breaking, snow falling and leaves tumbling to the groud are
beautifully drawn. The scenes of sheepshearing, barn burning
and the routines of rural life in 19th century England are
richly drawn.
This novel was authored shortly before Hardy wed his wife
and shows the novelist at the beginning of his great career.
Some readers may have trouble with the extensive use of dialect for the farmer characters but this novel is to be read
and savored and remembered long!

The perfect book, pretty well.......2005-12-27

I'm not sure that this book qualifies as one of the greatest of all time, but it is certainly one of my all-time favorites. My first aquaintance with the story was seeing the 1967 movies, with Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Peter Finch, and Alan Bates as the four main characters. (If you haven't seen it, this movie is very much worth the trouble.) Of course seeing the movie first has somewhat influenced the mental images of the characters in my head, despite the blonde, blue-eyed Christie playing the dark-haired, dark-eyed Bathsheba Everdene.

Yes, the story is about a beautiful women and the three men who court her, marry her, die for her, and swing for her (almost). There are lots of interesting sociological and historical topics here, and a great deal of the drama and pathos of the plot stems from the completely defenceless position of a women who, whatever wealth she may possess, essentially loses all control over her life when she marries someone whom, in contemporary terms, we might call a serial abuser.

But for me the real attraction of the book is the wonderful portrayal of nineteenth century rural life and the beautifully handled dialogue which is full of humor, pathos, and ultimately tragedy.

So, although in some respects the plot is not all the dissimilar from your typical Mills & Boon type scenario, there is much, much more in this book, and by the time you finish reading it, you have experienced a totally absorbing emotional rollercoaster ride and it is hard to say goodbye to these characters who truly come to life in the imagination.

Very, very highly recommended.

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Far From the Madding Crowd

Manufacturer: Trident Press International
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: 1582791767

Far From the Madding Crowd (Mini Gramercy Classics)

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Far From the Madding Crowd (Mini Gramercy Classics)
Thomas Hardy
Manufacturer: Gramercy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 051722786X
Release Date: 2006-06-06

The Penguin Thomas Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree (The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School); Far from the Madding Crowd; The Return ... Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character

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The Penguin Thomas Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree (The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School); Far from the Madding Crowd; The Return ... Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character
Thomas Hardy
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles The Mayor of Casterbridge Far from the Madding Crowd

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Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles The Mayor of Casterbridge Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy
Manufacturer: Chancellor Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

The quintessential Victorian novelist of unforgettable characters caught in their inescapable fates: with unfailing honesty and lyrical writing, Thomas Hardy captured his heroes' intimate relationship with the natural and social environment. Here are three of his finest works, presented in their entirety. Tess of the Durbervilles tells the tragic tale of a poor young girl's coming of age and her traumatic relationships with two men: the wealthy and cold Alec D'Urberville and the beautiful, but unforgiving Angel Clare. Michael Henchard, the title character of The Mayor of Casterbridge, reaches the pinnacles of power-only to lose everything through folly and bad luck. Set in Hardy's beloved Wessex, and always attentive to the struggles of everyday life in the farming community, Far From the Madding Crowd centers on Bathsheba Everdene and the men who love her.

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Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy
Manufacturer: IndyPublish.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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