Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman

Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.6
Word count
841K words
Chapters
85

Tags

English Originals Social FictionRomance FictionClassic Works Tragic FateLove EntanglementsHuman NatureMoral JudgmentClass DivideTragic AestheticsVictorian EraEnglish CountrysideFemale PerspectivePure Woman

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman by Thomas HardyAuthor: Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Feb 1, 1994

Editor's review

Tess of the d'Urbervilles is one of Hardy's most representative novels, and its subtitle, "A Pure Woman," points directly to the work's central controversy: how society judges a woman's "purity." Set against a rural background, the novel follows Tess's struggle among family expectations, emotional deception, and social prejudice as fate tightens around her step by step, making for a somber read. Hardy's descriptions of the Wessex countryside carry great weight; natural scenes often echo the characters' circumstances and form an important artistic feature of the work. As an English public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg, this edition is convenient for free reading and close textual study. While reading, pay attention to the narrator's attitude toward Tess, the role of chance events in the plot, and how Victorian gender ideas shape the characters' fates. It is not light reading, but it is valuable for understanding the English novel tradition and issues of women.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Learn about Victorian social background first; the characters' circumstances are easier to understand once you enter the text.
  2. Note how descriptions of nature echo Tess's fate.
  3. Record key turning points and consider what role chance and choice each play.
  4. After reading, compare the subtitle and consider whether the narrator's judgment of Tess remains consistent.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85

FAQ

How should the subtitle "A Pure Woman" be understood? The subtitle carries the author's intent to defend Tess and challenges the social idea of judging women by chastity. While reading, note how the narrator presents Tess's experiences and inner life, and consider the multiple meanings given to "purity" in the book.
Is the English in this book difficult? Hardy's descriptive passages are long, and the rural scenes and dialogue carry local color, so the vocabulary demands are higher than in ordinary popular fiction. Readers with some experience of long English fiction are better suited to reading the original directly; beginners may first use a translation to become familiar with the plot.
Do I need to know Hardy's other works before reading? No. This book can be read independently and does not depend on prior events from other works. If the Wessex background in Hardy's writing interests you, reading the other novels in the same series afterward will be smoother.

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About the author

Hardy, Thomas, 1840-1928 Author

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was an English novelist and poet whose career spanned the Victorian era and the twentieth century. The library holds 31 of his works, including representative titles such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure, and the poetry collection Late Lyrics and Earlier, with Many Other Verses. His novels are mostly set in the rural southwest of England, portraying ordinary people struggling against fate, social custom, and emotional entanglement in a somber yet compassionate tone. After the controversy surrounding Jude the Obscure, he turned mainly to poetry. Hardy's work has had a lasting influence on later English fiction. Public information about his life and nationality is limited, so this note is based on the works held and general literary knowledge.