Tess of the D'Urbervilles

by Thomas Hardy

Overview

A heartbreaking portrayal of a woman faced by an impossible choice in the pursuit of happiness

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, subtitled "A Pure Woman," is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels.

Based on the three-volume first edition that shocked readers when first published in 1891, this edition includes as appendices: Hardy's Prefaces, the Landscapes of Tess, episodes originally censored from the Graphic periodical version, and a selection of the Graphic illustrations.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781471854019
Publisher:	Hodder Education
Publication date:	06/23/2016
Series:	Study & Revise for AS/A-level
Edition description:	Illustrate
Pages:	103
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)
Age Range:	15 - 17 Years

About the Author

Thomas Hardy was an English novelist, short story writer, and poet of the naturalist movement, though he saw himself as a poet and wrote novels mainly for financial gain only. The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-imaginary county of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances.

Date of Birth:

June 2, 1840

Date of Death:

January 11, 1928

Place of Birth:

Higher Brockhampon, Dorset, England

Place of Death:

Max Gate, Dorchester, England

Education:

Served as apprentice to architect James Hicks

Read an Excerpt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

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By Thomas Hardy

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Copyright © 2016 Open Road Integrated Media
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3458-6

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CHAPTER 1

On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune.

"Good night t'ee," said the man with the basket.

"Good night, Sir John," said the parson.

The pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and turned round.

"Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road about this time, and I said 'Good night,' and you made reply 'Good night, Sir John,' as now."

"I did," said the parson.

"And once before that — near a month ago."

"I may have."

"Then what might your meaning be in calling me 'Sir John' these different times, when I be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?"

The parson rode a step or two nearer.

"It was only my whim," he said; and, after a moment's hesitation: "It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don't you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d'Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d'Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?"

"Never heard it before, sir!"

"Well it's true. Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that's the d'Urberville nose and chin — a little debased. Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second's time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell's time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the Second's reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now."

"Ye don't say so!"

"In short," concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, "there's hardly such another family in England."

"Daze my eyes, and isn't there?" said Durbeyfield. "And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish ... And how long hev this news about me been knowed, Pa'son Tringham?"

The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all. His own investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring when, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the d'Urberville family, he had observed Durbeyfield's name on his waggon, and had thereupon been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather till he had no doubt on the subject.

"At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information," said he. "However, our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes. I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while."

"Well, I have heard once or twice, 'tis true, that my family had seen better days afore they came to Blackmoor. But I took no notice o't, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where we now keep only one. I've got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what's a spoon and seal? ... And to think that I and these noble d'Urbervilles were one flesh all the time. 'Twas said that my gr't-granfer had secrets, and didn't care to talk of where he came from ... And where do we raise our smoke, now, parson, if I may make so bold; I mean, where do we d'Urbervilles live?"

"You don't live anywhere. You are extinct — as a county family."

"That's bad."

"Yes — what the mendacious family chronicles call extinct in the male line — that is, gone down — gone under."

"Then where do we lie?"

"At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults, with your effigies under Purbeck-marble canopies."

"And where be our family mansions and estates?"

"You haven't any."

"Oh? No lands neither?"

"None; though you once had 'em in abundance, as I said, for you family consisted of numerous branches. In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and another in Millpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge."

"And shall we ever come into our own again?"

"Ah — that I can't tell!"

"And what had I better do about it, sir?" asked Durbeyfield, after a pause.

"Oh — nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of 'how are the mighty fallen.' It is a fact of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, nothing more. There are several families among the cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre. Good night."

"But you'll turn back and have a quart of beer wi' me on the strength o't, Pa'son Tringham? There's a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop — though, to be sure, not so good as at Rolliver's."

"No, thank you — not this evening, Durbeyfield. You've had enough already." Concluding thus, the parson rode on his way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore.

When he was gone, Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him. In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been pursued by Durbeyfield. The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and came near.

"Boy, take up that basket! I want 'ee to go on an errand for me."

The lath-like stripling frowned. "Who be you, then, John Durbeyfield, to order me about and call me 'boy'? You know my name as well as I know yours!"

"Do you, do you? That's the secret — that's the secret! Now obey my orders, and take the message I'm going to charge 'ee wi' ... Well, Fred, I don't mind telling you that the secret is that I'm one of a noble race — it has been just found out by me this present afternoon, p.m." And as he made the announcement, Durbeyfield, declining from his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies.

The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe.

"Sir John d'Urberville — that's who I am," continued the prostrate man. "That is if knights were baronets — which they be. 'Tis recorded in history all about me. Dost know of such a place, lad, as Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill?"

"Ees. I've been there to Greenhill Fair."

"Well, under the church of that city there lie — "

"'Tisn't a city, the place I mean; leastwise 'twaddn' when I was there — 'twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o' place."

"Never you mind the place, boy, that's not the question before us. Under the church of that there parish lie my ancestors — hundreds of 'em — in coats of mail and jewels, in gr't lead coffins weighing tons and tons. There's not a man in the county o' South-Wessex that's got grander and nobler skillentons in his family than I."

"Oh?"

"Now take up that basket, and goo on to Marlott, and when you've come to The Pure Drop Inn, tell 'em to send a horse and carriage to me immed'ately, to carry me hwome. And in the bottom o' the carriage they be to put a noggin o' rum in a small bottle, and chalk it up to my account. And when you've done that goo on to my house with the basket, and tell my wife to put away that washing, because she needn't finish it, and wait till I come hwome, as I've news to tell her."

As the lad stood in a dubious attitude, Durbeyfield put his hand in his pocket, and produced a shilling, one of the chronically few that he possessed.

"Here's for your labour, lad."

This made a difference in the young man's estimate of the position.

"Yes, Sir John. Thank 'ee. Anything else I can do for 'ee, Sir John?"

"Tell 'em at hwome that I should like for supper, — well, lamb's fry if they can get it; and if they can't, black-pot; and if they can't get that, well chitterlings will do."

"Yes, Sir John."

The boy took up the basket, and as he set out the notes of a brass band were heard from the direction of the village.

"What's that?" said Durbeyfield. "Not on account o' I?"

"'Tis the women's club-walking, Sir John. Why, your da'ter is one o' the members."

"To be sure — I'd quite forgot it in my thoughts of greater things! Well, vamp on to Marlott, will ye, and order that carriage, and maybe I'll drive round and inspect the club."

The lad departed, and Durbeyfield lay waiting on the grass and daisies in the evening sun. Not a soul passed that way for a long while, and the faint notes of the band were the only human sounds audible within the rim of blue hills.

CHAPTER 2

The village of Marlott lay amid the north-eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor, aforesaid, an engirdled and secluded region, for the most part untrodden as yet by tourist or landscape-painter, though within a four hours' journey from London.

It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the hills that surround it — except perhaps during the droughts of summer. An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways.

This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill, Bulbarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down. The traveller from the coast, who, after plodding northward for a score of miles over calcareous downs and corn-lands, suddenly reaches the verge of one of these escarpments, is surprised and delighted to behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing absolutely from that which he has passed through. Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless. Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor.

The district is of historic, no less than of topographical interest. The Vale was known in former times as the Forest of White Hart, from a curious legend of King Henry III's reign, in which the killing by a certain Thomas de la Lynd of a beautiful white hart which the king had run down and spared, was made the occasion of a heavy fine. In those days, and till comparatively recent times, the country was densely wooded. Even now, traces of its earlier condition are to be found in the old oak copses and irregular belts of timber that yet survive upon its slopes, and the hollow-trunked trees that shade so many of its pastures.

The forests have departed, but some old customs of their shades remain. Many, however, linger only in a metamorphosed or disguised form. The May-Day dance, for instance, was to be discerned on the afternoon under notice, in the guise of the club revel, or "club-walking," as it was there called.

It was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of Marlott, though its real interest was not observed by the participators in the ceremony. Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking in procession and dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women. In men's clubs such celebrations were, though expiring, less uncommon; but either the natural shyness of the softer sex, or a sarcastic attitude on the part of male relatives, had denuded such women's clubs as remained (if any other did) or this their glory and consummation. The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia. It had walked for hundreds of years, if not as benefit-club, as votive sisterhood of some sort; and it walked still.

The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns — a gay survival from Old Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms — days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average. Their first exhibition of themselves was in a processional march of two and two round the parish. Ideal and real clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts; for, though the whole troop wore white garments, no two whites were alike among them. Some approached pure blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year) inclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style.

In addition to the distinction of a white frock, every woman and girl carried in her right hand a peeled willow wand, and in her left a bunch of white flowers. The peeling of the former, and the selection of the latter, had been an operation of personal care.

There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train, their silver-wiry hair and wrinkled faces, scourged by time and trouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a pathetic, appearance in such a jaunty situation. In a true view, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one, to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say, "I have no pleasure in them," than of her juvenile comrades. But let the elder be passed over here for those under whose bodices the life throbbed quick and warm.

The young girls formed, indeed, the majority of the band, and their heads of luxuriant hair reflected in the sunshine every tone of gold, and black, and brown. Some had beautiful eyes, others a beautiful nose, others a beautiful mouth and figure: few, if any, had all. A difficulty of arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public scrutiny, an inability to balance their heads, and to dissociate self-consciousness from their features, was apparent in them, and showed that they were genuine country girls, unaccustomed to many eyes.

And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope which, though perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will. They were all cheerful, and many of them merry.

They came round by The Pure Drop Inn, and were turning out of the high road to pass through a wicket-gate into the meadows, when one of the women said —

"The Load-a-Lord! Why, Tess Durbeyfield, if there isn't thy father riding hwome in a carriage!"

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Copyright © 2016 Open Road Integrated Media. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Thomas Hardy: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Appendix A: General Preface to the Wessex Edition of 1912

Appendix B: Bowdlerized Passages from the Graphic

Appendix C: Hardy’s “Saturday Night in Arcady” (1891) and “The Midnight Baptism” (1891)

Appendix D: Hardy’s Map of Wessex (1895)

Appendix E: Hardy’s “Tess’s Lament” (1911)

Appendix F: Contemporary Reviews

1. From Unsigned, Pall Mall Gazette (31 December 1891)
2. Clementina Black, Illustrated London News (9 January 1892)
3. From Unsigned, The Athenaeum (9 January 1892)
4. From Unsigned [R.H. Hutton], The Spectator (23 January 1892)
5. From Andrew Lang, The New Review (February 1892)
6. From Unsigned, Review of Reviews (February 1892)
7. From Unsigned [Mowbray Morris], The Quarterly Review (April 1892)
8. From Unsigned, Novel Review (March 1892)
9. From Grant Allen, Novel Review (July 1892)
10. From Andrew Lang, Longman’s Magazine (November 1892)
11. From D.F. Hannigan, The Westminster Review (1892)

Appendix G: Contemporary News

1. “Execution of the Convict Martha Brown” (14 August 1856)
2. “Accident” (17 October 1872)
3. [“The Turberville Coach”] (4 June 1885)
4. “Shocking Suicide” (2 August 1888)

Appendix H: Contemporary Debates on Women, Sexuality, and Fiction

1. From Unsigned, “Outrages on Women,” North British Review (May 1896)
2. From Eliza Lynn Linton, “The Wild Women as Social Insurgents,” The Nineteenth Century (October 1891)
3. From Eliza Lynn Linton, “The Partisans of the Wild Women,” The Nineteenth Century (March 1892)
4. From Mona Caird, “A Defense of the So-Called ‘Wild Women,’” The Nineteenth Century (May 1892)
5. From Unsigned, “Men’s Women in Fiction,” The Westminster Review (May 1898)
6. From D.F. Hannigan, “Sex in Fiction,” The Westminster Review (1895)

Appendix I: Hardy’s “Candour in English Fiction” (1890)

Appendix J: Excerpts from Hardy’s Autobiography

Works Cited and Recommended Reading

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Audie Award winner Simon Vance's reading is straightforward, well paced, and clear." —-Library Journal Audio Review

Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION

Soon after he completed Tess of the D’Urbervilles in 1891, Thomas Hardy wrote of the novel’s heroine, Tess Durbeyfield, “I lost my heart to her as I went on with her history.” Sadly for Hardy, his affection for his protagonist did not translate into an immediately loving popular reception for his book. Now regarded as a masterwork of realist fiction, Tess of the D’Urbervillesstunned Hardy’s Victorian readership with its frank portrayals of sexual desire and its candid indictment of both divine and human injustice. Today, long after the scandal that surrounded Tess has faded into history, the majesty of Hardy’s artistic achievement endures.

The “fine and handsome” daughter of a poor country peddler, with evidently little more than her brimming emotions and her “large innocent eyes” to distinguish her from the other girls in her home village of Marlott, Tess Durbeyfield might have looked forward to a happy, if uneventful, life. Instead, her father’s poverty and her family’s vain desire to exploit a recently discovered ancestral link to nobility cause Tess to fall under the destructive influence of Alec D’Urberville, a libidinous, unprincipled rake who steals her innocence and impregnates her. With slow, painful effort, Tess strives to recover her reputation and self-respect, and she resolves never again to surrender to passion. Then, into her life walks the captivating Angel Clare, the free-thinking but staunchly virtuous son of an Anglican vicar. Despite her efforts to rein in her sensuous nature and tremendous vitality, Tess falls worshipfully in love with the young man, and he with her. Yet an ominous complication looms: will Angel continue to return her affections once she reveals the disgrace of her sexual past?

Set against the vivid, tempestuous natural canvas of Hardy’s beloved Wessex, Tess of the D’Urbervilles is a gripping tragic romance, as well as an elegiac portrait of a pastoral way of life already under threat from the encroachments of the machine age. But it is also more than this. It is one of the most probingly philosophical novels ever written, meditating deeply on the irresistible forces that drive us toward both passion and pain. With superbly crafted prose, a peerless eye for beauty, and an astonishing moral ruthlessness, Thomas Hardy dissects the emotions of vanity, guilt, desire, and love that dwell deep within us all, elevating the seemingly commonplace struggles of an apparently unexceptional young woman to the very heights of tragedy.

ABOUT THOMAS HARDY

The preeminent British novelist of the late Victorian era and one of only a handful of authors to achieve distinction both as a novelist and as a poet, Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Brockhampton in the county of Dorset in 1840. Although he initially considered a career in the ministry, he lost his religious faith in his early twenties and, for a time, pursued a career as an architect. While still an architect, Hardy published such novels as Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), and Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). The latter of these was so successful that he was able to give up architecture and support himself solely as a writer. As a novelist, he is best remembered for his “Wessex” novels, so called because they are set in stark rural landscape of the southwest counties of England, which Hardy renamed Wessex in his fiction. Along with Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), these novels include The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge(1886), The Woodlanders (1887), and Jude the Obscure (1896). In these often sublimely pessimistic novels, Hardy persistently explores the struggle of humankind against the indifferent natural forces that he perceived to dominate life and to thwart our best hopes. Following the deeply hostile receptions that greeted Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, Hardy abandoned the novel for poetry. He went on to publish more than nine hundred poems, in which he continued to express his concerns about human frailty and the power of fate. Hardy died in 1928 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

The title of Hardy’s novel describes Tess as “a pure woman.” Does Tess, in fact, remain pure? In what respects? Why does Hardy highlight this quality in his title?
 

In the “Explanatory Note” that precedes the novel, Hardy writes that Tess of the D’Urbervilles represents “on the whole a true sequence of things” and grew out of his wish “to have it said what everybody thinks and feels.” Can Tess of the D’Urbervilles fairly be called a “truthful” piece of fiction? Are its characters and situations believable? Do you find its underlying philosophy persuasive?
 

Some who read Tess of the D’Urbervilles when it was first published in 1891 argued that Tess was a “little harlot” who deserved her death by hanging. Modern readers are rather less likely to respond to Tess so harshly. How do you think the overall change in social mores between 1891 and today affect how you respond to Tess?
 

Alec wrongs Tess through his lack of principles. Angel wrongs her with his excess of principles. Which do you see as the more unforgivable betrayal?
 

While it may be tempting to think of Alec as a “bad” character and Angel as a “good” one, both experience an inner struggle between spiritual purity and erotic desire—a struggle that neither man wages successfully. Moreover, it is Alec the scoundrel—not Angel the moralist—who is there for Tess when she is in need and who supports her family in a time of crisis. What are the real differences between Alec and Angel? How does Hardy use the two characters to complicate the categories of good and evil?
 

Why does Hardy divide his novel in “Phases”? What apparent transformations separate each phase from the last? How does this term encourage us to think about Tess, and what does it say about what Hardy meant to accomplish in his novel and about his view of human development?
 

In classical tragedy, the hero is destroyed from within by a tragic flaw in his or her character. Does Tess have a tragic flaw, or is she better understood as a victim of external circumstances?
 

Tess’s tragedy is set in motion by her father’s discovery of his noble ancestry. Although Tess herself possesses a kind of natural nobility in addition to her noble heritage, the men in her life continually see her as somehow inferior to them. What does Hardy suggest about the hierarchies that people observe among themselves, whether arising from ancestry, wealth, or gender? What hierarchies seem to exert the greatest influence, and why?
 

Today, in most communities, Tess mothering a child out of wedlock would probably be far less of a scandal than it was in Wessex in 1891. While this greater social acceptance would be good news for a modern Tess, it would considerably impact Hardy’s plot. What is the range of tragic art as its traditionally forbidden content becomes acceptable? Can tragedy as a genre exist in a tolerant, permissive culture?
 

Many of Hardy’s characters are defined either by their religious beliefs or lack of them. What forms of spirituality are represented in the novel? Which does Hardy appear to favor? Are there any belief systems in the novel that do not, at some point or another, cause harm to the believer or to others? Does Hardy give us any guidance in distinguishing beneficial beliefs from harmful ones?
 

Hardy never explains why Tess, after being drugged and raped by Alec, remains with him for several months. How might you account for her decision not to leave him at once?
 

When describing Tess’s “moral hobgoblins” in Chapter XIII, Hardy writes, “It was they that were out of harmony with the actual world, not she.” How do you respond to Hardy’s suggestion that civilized society is a moral failure because it is out of tune with the “actual,” or natural world? What, as Hardy sees it, is the essential conflict between society and nature? What would a “natural” morality look like, and would it be an improvement?
 

In Chapter XV, Hardy quotes a striking statement from Saint Augustine: that God has “counseled a better course than [He has] permitted;” in other words, God demands more decent conduct from people than can be practiced in the world where he has placed us. How does Hardy’s novel as a whole support this assertion? Do you find it to be true?
 

Later in the same chapter, after Tess’s rape by Alec and the death of her baby, Hardy writes that his heroine has “changed from simple girl to complex woman.” Her eyes “more eloquent” and her mind more reflective, she has become a “fine creature.” Hardy even suggests that her mistreatment might be deemed “simply a liberal education.” Is Hardy right to make the seemingly outrageous contention that Tess’s abuse has aided in her growth and improvement? What does he appear to be saying about the natures of suffering and human morality?
 

Hardy offers a marked contrast between the pastoral tranquility of Crick’s dairy and the mechanized fury of Groby’s farm, shown particularly in Chapter XLVII. What is Hardy’s opinion of modern technology?
 

Is Tess of the D’Urbervilles more accurately seen as a protest against unjust moral and social tenets, or an acknowledgment that such structures will always exist?
 

What, finally, is to blame for Tess’s tragedy? Does it stem principally from sexual desire? From her own ready acceptance of the victim’s role? From poor communication? From despicable timing? From her parents’ benighted ambitions? Or does it result, as her brother Abraham suggests, from living on a “blighted” star?
 

Near the end of the novel, the doomed Tess suggests that Angel should marry her sister, ’Liza-Lu. Do you think this would be a successful marriage? State your reasons.
 

Imagine that you are Tess’s lawyer in her prosecution for the murder of Alec. What arguments would you use, and do you think they would succeed?
 

Hardy once wrote, “The best tragedy . . . is that of the worthy encompassed by the inevitable.” Using this definition, or substituting your own, assess whether Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the “best” kinds of tragedy.
 

Editorial Reviews

[Tess of the D’Urbervilles is] Hardy’s finest, most complex and most notorious novel . . . The novel is not a mere plea for compassion for the eternal victim, though that is the banner it flies. It also involves a profound questioning of contemporary morality.” –from the Introduction by Patricia Ingham

From the Publisher

"The second edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Sarah E. Maier brings together a wealth of contextual materials, contemporary reviews, extracts from Hardy's notebooks, and nineteenth-century debates about women, inviting the reader to respond to the challenge of the novel's subtitle: 'A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented.' It reprints two separately published stories, 'Saturday Night in Arcady' and 'The Midnight Baptism,' which Hardy salvaged from the expurgated text published in the Graphic and reinstated in the three-volume edition of 1891. Meticulously annotated and impressively documented, this new edition will be indispensable to students and scholars alike."

Joanne Shattock Victorian Studies Centre