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.

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