"I'm an outsider to the end of my days!"
Jude Fawley's hopes of a university education are lost when he is
trapped into marrying the earthy Arabella, who later abandons him.
Moving to the town of Christminster where he finds work as a stonemason,
Jude meets and falls in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead, a sensitive,
freethinking "New Woman." Refusing to marry merely for the sake of
religious convention, Jude and Sue decide instead to live together, but
they are shunned by society and poverty soon threatens to ruin them.
Jude the Obscure, Hardy's last novel, caused a public furor when it
was first published, with its fearless and challenging exploration of
class and sexual relationships.
This edition uses the unbowdlerized text of the first volume edition of
1895, and also includes a list for further reading, appendices and a
glossary. In his introduction, Dennis Taylor examines biblical allusions
and the critique of religion in Jude the Obscure, and its critical
reception that led Hardy to abandon novel writing.
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.
