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Jude the Obscure
"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.
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.
528 pages, Paperback
Published September 1, 1998
About the author
Thomas Hardy
2,848 books7,072 followersThomas Hardy, OM, was an English author of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. He regarded himself primarily as a poet and composed novels mainly for financial gain.
The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 12, 2026
This book has been languishing on my bookshelves for an embarrassing time (at least 4 decades). My mother said it was horrible and had a very sad ending: Mum suggested I should read anything but that… However curiosity got the better of me and finally in my seventh decade I decided I must break the taboo on it.
I was curious having been exposed to Hardy as a teenager at school, he was to me the author of gorgeously rural accented tales reproduced with much aplomb on TV. In addition we had The Woodlanders and The Return of the Native to study as young women at school but I think in retrospect Hardy may have been wasted on us.
I think Jude is an outlier for me in the same way that Hard Times is when looking at Dickens.
It is salutary to realise that Hardy was so criticised by the press and public opinion following the publication of Jude that he NEVER wrote another novel but concentrated on poetry. It is an experience to read the commentary, from contemporary to current, at the back of the Norton Critical Edition which I chose to read this novel.
Hardy wanted the reader to: understand the injustices of the poor who despite a willingness and aspiration to ‘better themselves’ were thwarted by the social system in 19th century England; he displayed the massive hypocrisy of institutionalised religion with all its cant and at heart its failure to care for the most needy and destitute; the impossible statutes of the marriage laws which essentially made the woman a chattel of her husband, bound to obey and subject herself to his will.
I received his message but Sue, the love of the saintly and much put upon naive and manipulated Jude, was, I have to admit, supremely irritating and had a worryingly lacking of sex drive, in addition to vacillating in her reasoning beyond any man’s endurance.
In contrast, Arabella, Jude’s first wife, brazen hussy though she was, was more understandable in today’s terms, although she was a tremendously flawed, that’s quite a mild description, but a completely imagined and believable character.
Overall any serious lover of literature especially Victorian era should read this. Yes Mum was right the end is horrible and very sad BUT it’s a must read.
I was curious having been exposed to Hardy as a teenager at school, he was to me the author of gorgeously rural accented tales reproduced with much aplomb on TV. In addition we had The Woodlanders and The Return of the Native to study as young women at school but I think in retrospect Hardy may have been wasted on us.
I think Jude is an outlier for me in the same way that Hard Times is when looking at Dickens.
It is salutary to realise that Hardy was so criticised by the press and public opinion following the publication of Jude that he NEVER wrote another novel but concentrated on poetry. It is an experience to read the commentary, from contemporary to current, at the back of the Norton Critical Edition which I chose to read this novel.
Hardy wanted the reader to: understand the injustices of the poor who despite a willingness and aspiration to ‘better themselves’ were thwarted by the social system in 19th century England; he displayed the massive hypocrisy of institutionalised religion with all its cant and at heart its failure to care for the most needy and destitute; the impossible statutes of the marriage laws which essentially made the woman a chattel of her husband, bound to obey and subject herself to his will.
I received his message but Sue, the love of the saintly and much put upon naive and manipulated Jude, was, I have to admit, supremely irritating and had a worryingly lacking of sex drive, in addition to vacillating in her reasoning beyond any man’s endurance.
In contrast, Arabella, Jude’s first wife, brazen hussy though she was, was more understandable in today’s terms, although she was a tremendously flawed, that’s quite a mild description, but a completely imagined and believable character.
Overall any serious lover of literature especially Victorian era should read this. Yes Mum was right the end is horrible and very sad BUT it’s a must read.
January 22, 2026
i clutched this one up icl
24 hours dedicated and scranned it up
jude you are so cool i love everything hardy writes atp
24 hours dedicated and scranned it up
jude you are so cool i love everything hardy writes atp
August 22, 2026
This book has devastated me.
We are no stranger with the saying that one must always try hard for his passion, as the result of which is never futile but always fruitful. Perhaps Sartre would agree that one must act anyway, without hope preferably, as one is condemned to freedom and is abandoned in the life where he must dictate what will be of him. Yet, we have been deprived of the notion of how our lives are altered by our societal structures.
We do not live in a solitary world where the person bearing the effects of our actions would be only ourselves. We live in a society where the actions proceeding the decisions we make in the corners would affect other individuals whom we are strangers with -- and will be forever. And so will the decisions of others affect us, in subtle ways, yet irretrievable.
This book shows how often social structures violates and fierce through dreams and passions, and how people can be confronted forces greater than of their own. Merit does not guarantee opportunity or a bright future as long as societies are ruled by rigid instructions whose central creed precedes the existence of its individuals. Such institutions will go on to punish love, freedom, and individuality, and with doing so they will alter the lives of humans whose fate are bound to such institutions. Let that be marriage or anything else.
When we think of fate we often think of something supernatural or ordained by god, yet I assume that if fate is defined by the crushing weight of social reality, then our fellow humans within these societal walls have more of an impact on what become of us rather than the holy entity that sits above. This story kept repeating one specific tale from the beginning till the ending, and that was the curse of the Fawley family. Yet, taking the society into consideration, we realize that there is nothing supernatural about this curse as there has never been any, and if anything of such ever existed, it was the structural barriers, expectations, and institutional cruelty that was imposed. Perhaps there is nothing out of human that happens to humans that is done by humans.
If all of this world is for men, then what is all this suffering on this ground?
We are no stranger with the saying that one must always try hard for his passion, as the result of which is never futile but always fruitful. Perhaps Sartre would agree that one must act anyway, without hope preferably, as one is condemned to freedom and is abandoned in the life where he must dictate what will be of him. Yet, we have been deprived of the notion of how our lives are altered by our societal structures.
We do not live in a solitary world where the person bearing the effects of our actions would be only ourselves. We live in a society where the actions proceeding the decisions we make in the corners would affect other individuals whom we are strangers with -- and will be forever. And so will the decisions of others affect us, in subtle ways, yet irretrievable.
This book shows how often social structures violates and fierce through dreams and passions, and how people can be confronted forces greater than of their own. Merit does not guarantee opportunity or a bright future as long as societies are ruled by rigid instructions whose central creed precedes the existence of its individuals. Such institutions will go on to punish love, freedom, and individuality, and with doing so they will alter the lives of humans whose fate are bound to such institutions. Let that be marriage or anything else.
When we think of fate we often think of something supernatural or ordained by god, yet I assume that if fate is defined by the crushing weight of social reality, then our fellow humans within these societal walls have more of an impact on what become of us rather than the holy entity that sits above. This story kept repeating one specific tale from the beginning till the ending, and that was the curse of the Fawley family. Yet, taking the society into consideration, we realize that there is nothing supernatural about this curse as there has never been any, and if anything of such ever existed, it was the structural barriers, expectations, and institutional cruelty that was imposed. Perhaps there is nothing out of human that happens to humans that is done by humans.
If all of this world is for men, then what is all this suffering on this ground?
July 21, 2026
Jude the Obscure is probably going to be my favorite read of Hardy. I randomly picked this book in a retired library in my hometown. It was on sale, and I didn’t have that much money with me.
I didn’t necessarily wish to start my summer to be read list with this one, but I ended up so, as I felt deeply pulled by the cover and the title. I spent a month and a half with this wonderful piece of art, annotating each end of chapter, each quote and each dialogue I found pleasing and worthy of remembering.
I happened to cry over a very specific event that occurred past middle the story. It shook me completely, and shattered my heart deeply. It positively forced me to rethink western traditional values, and helped me realize how many authors spent their lives writing rebelliously against the system that they were trapped in.
Hardy is probably one of the best English literature authors, if not the most underrated (in my opinion). We should pay more tribute to his work, which I think is left to gather dust due to its complexity and its unsettling underlying style.
I didn’t necessarily wish to start my summer to be read list with this one, but I ended up so, as I felt deeply pulled by the cover and the title. I spent a month and a half with this wonderful piece of art, annotating each end of chapter, each quote and each dialogue I found pleasing and worthy of remembering.
I happened to cry over a very specific event that occurred past middle the story. It shook me completely, and shattered my heart deeply. It positively forced me to rethink western traditional values, and helped me realize how many authors spent their lives writing rebelliously against the system that they were trapped in.
Hardy is probably one of the best English literature authors, if not the most underrated (in my opinion). We should pay more tribute to his work, which I think is left to gather dust due to its complexity and its unsettling underlying style.
August 3, 2026
Making me reconsider my preference to marry an Arabella.
October 5, 2026
Top notch
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews