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    A Study Guide for Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    A Study Guide for Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    A Study Guide for Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles
    Ebook47 pages32 minutes

    A Study Guide for Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 21, 2015
    ISBN9781535834803
    A Study Guide for Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles

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    A Study Guide for Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Gale

    4

    Tess of the d'Urbervilles

    Thomas Hardy

    1891

    Introduction

    When Tess of the d'Urbervilles appeared in 1891, Thomas Hardy was one of England's leading men of letters. He had already authored several well-known novels, including The Return of the Native, and numerous short stories. Tess brought him notoriety—it was considered quite scandalous—and fortune. Despite this success, the novel was one of Hardy's last. He was deeply wounded by some of the particularly personal attacks he received from reviewers of the book. In 1892, he wrote in one of his notebooks, quoted in The Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892-1928, compiled by Florence Emily Hardy, Well, if this sort of thing continues no more novel-writing for me. A man must be a fool to deliberately stand up to be shot at.

    In spite of his reputation, Hardy had difficulty finding a periodical willing to publish the book when he offered it for serialization to London's leading reviews. The subject matter—a milkmaid who is seduced by one man, married and rejected by another, and who eventually murders the first one—was considered unfit for publications which young people might read. To appease potential publishers, Hardy took the novel apart, re-wrote some scenes and added others. In due course; a publisher was secured. When it came time to publish the novel in book form, Hardy reassembled it as it was originally conceived.

    Early critics attacked Hardy for the novel's subtitle, A Pure Woman, arguing that Tess could not possibly be considered pure. They also denounced his frank—for the time—depiction of sex, criticism of organized religion, and dark pessimism. Today, the novel is praised as a courageous call for righting many of the ills Hardy found in Victorian society and as a link between the late-Victorian literature of the end of the nineteenth century and that of the modern era.

    Author Biography

    Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in a small village in Dorset, an area of southern England steeped in history. One of the local landmarks, Corfe Castle, was once home for the kings of the ancient Saxon kingdom of Wessex. Hardy chose the name Wessex for the setting of his most important novels, including Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Like the Durbeyfields in Tess, the Hardys fancied themselves descendants of a noble and ancient family line. The Dorset Hardys were presumably a branch of the Le Hardys who claimed descent from Clement Le Hardy, a fifteen-century lieutenant-governor of the British Channel island of Jersey. Remote ties to Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, who served with the British naval hero Nelson during the decisive battle of Trafalgar in 1805, were also possible.

    Besides his family name, Hardy's parents gave their son the love of literature, music (like his father, Thomas played the fiddle), and religion, which are evident in his works. A self-styled born book-worm, Hardy could read at age three. He might have had a successful career as a scholar, but at age sixteen, his formal schooling ended when he was apprenticed to a local church restorer. He loved knowledge,

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