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. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Jude Fawleys hopes of an education at Christminster University are dashed when he is trapped into marrying the wild, earthy Arabella, who later abandons. 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.įor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. 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. 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.

It is however still a very powerful and vividly written book, especially the sixth. 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 is Thomas Hardys last novel and his most controversial. 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. Jude Fawley's hopes of a university education are lost when he is trapped into marrying the earthy Arabella, who later abandons him.

Jude fawley