Jude the Obscure (Works of Thomas Hardy in Prose and Verse, Vol 3)

by Thomas Hardy

Now considered his best work, Thomas Hardy's novel about a stonemason excluded from the privileged world of learning by class, and his relationship with an emancipated woman, scandalized the late Victorian establishment and marked the end of his career as a novelist. This new Penguin Classics edition reprints the original 1895 edition and includes Hardy's "Postscript" of 1912. (read review)

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Amazon Reviews (5)
 

Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.
dickensfan
  • Rated 5 stars

You may want to get a prescription for some Prozac before reading this. Jude Fawley desperately wants to go to university, but is sidetracked by the voluptuous Arabella. Things get even more twisted when Jude meets his intelligent, unpredictable and unconventional cousin, Sue Bridehead.

Hardy himself never had children, which is patently evident when you meet the creepy Little Father Time.

In spite of the gloom, this is still a splendid novel about frustrated ambition, real...

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Didn’t Like It

0 of 1 members found this review helpful.
Michelle C
  • Rated 2 stars

I hated the ending so much that I threw the book across the room when I was done. Otherwise, it was fine :)

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Community:
  • Rated 3.722222 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4.038462 stars
 

Newest Comments

  • sandra b

    sandra b said:

    Hardy's Jude the Obscure is captivating, though a thread of hopelessness runs throughout the novel somewhere lurking in the pages lies the wheel of emotion which propels the human race!

    posted Sunday, August 24 2008
  • CorvusSingularis

    corvussingularis said:

    I remember reading Hardy’s Jude the Obscure working on my MA in English literature. And this novel is undoubtedly literary naturalism. Jude is, indeed, obscured by environmental factors preventing his ability to better himself in life through proper education. It is a novel that ring true in many parts of the world today as environmental factors do indeed spell out disaster for many individuals. In Jude’s case, his path of bad luck leads into Hell itself, it seems, especially with the scene of the murdered children.

    posted Tuesday, October 9 2007
  • Nice

    nice said:

    As if the characters' tragedies were not enough, this one had to kill ALL of their children!

    posted Sunday, October 7 2007
  • Nice

    nice said:

    As if the characters' tragedies were not enough, this one had to kill ALL of their children!

    posted Sunday, October 7 2007
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