Jude the Obscure - Softcover

Hardy, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551111713 ISBN 13: 9781551111711

Publisher: Broadview Press, 1999

Synopsis

When Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure appeared in 1895, it immediately caused scandal and controversy. Its frank treatment of Jude’s sexual relationships with Arabella and Sue, its scathing criticisms of late-Victorian hypocrisy, its depiction of the “New Woman,” and its attacks on “holy wedlock” and religious bigotry outraged numerous reviewers; one called the book “Jude the Obscene.” Others saw it as brilliantly progressive in its ideas and techniques. Vivid and complex, satiric and harrowing, this novel marked the culmination of Hardy’s development as a leading novelist of the cultural transition from the Victorian to the Modernist era. The Broadview edition restores the original, controversial 1895 text.

About this title

Book Description

Thomas Hardy's last novel charts the life of Jude Fawley from his parochial childhood to his death in the collegiate city of Christminster, the centre of his intellectual dreams and their failure. Initially published as a much-abridged serial, the text first appeared in its full and present form in 1895.

From the Publisher

In 1895 Hardy's final novel, the great tale of Jude The Obscure, sent shockwaves of indignation rolling across Victorian England. Hardy had dared to write frankly about sexuality and to indict the institutions of marriage, education, and religion. But he had, in fact, created a deeply moral work. The stonemason Jude Fawley is a dreamer; his is a tragedy of unfulfilled aims. With his tantalizing cousin Sue Bridehead, the last and most extraordinary of Hardy's heroines, Jude takes on the world--and discovers, tragically, its brutal indifference. The most powerful expression of Hardy's philosophy, and a profound exploration of man's essential loneliness, Jude The Obscure is a great and beautiful book. "His style touches sublimity."--T.S. Eliot

Edition details

• Publisher: Broadview Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1551111713
• ISBN 13: 9781551111711
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 520
• Editor: Watts Cedric