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| Far from the Madding Crowd (Modern Library Classics) | 
| Author: Thomas Hardy
Creator: Margaret Drabble
Publisher: Modern Library
Category: Book
List Price: $7.95
Buy Used: $1.58
You Save: $6.37 (80%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 274262
Media: Paperback
Edition: Modern Library
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 037575797X
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780375757976
ASIN: 037575797X
Publication Date: December 11, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Visible shelf wear -- may have some notes/markings on pages
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Product Description
Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy’s passionate tale of the beautiful, headstrong farmer Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors, firmly established the thirty-four-year-old writer as a popular novelist. According to Virginia Woolf, “The subject was right; the method was right; the poet and the countryman, the sensual man, the sombre reflective man, the man of learning, all enlisted to produce a book which . . . must hold its place among the great English novels.” Introducing the fictional name of “Wessex” to describe Hardy’s legendary countryside, this early masterpiece draws a vivid picture of rural life in southwest England.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1912 Wessex edition and features Hardy’s map of Wessex.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Excellent novel May 15, 2008
Hardy's novel, I was surprised to find, lacked the sluggishness and wordiness sometimes found in nineteenth-century novels. His story moves just quickly enough to keep the reader hooked (an advantage, given that the novel was originally a serial) while giving a great deal of thought to the characters and their motivations and sentiments. Hardy's characters are generally well-formed and believable. An excellent read.
HARDY CLASSIC May 6, 2007
EXCELLENT-HARDY DOES A WONDERFUL JOB OF DEVELOPING CHARACTERS AND PLOT-HE'S AN EXCELLENT WRITER
Forces of Nature July 9, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, the first of Thomas Hardy's 'Wessex' novels, tells the story of a small troupe of farmers and their workers in a sheep-farming community in the fictitious county of 'Wessex'.
Gabriel Oak has been a shepherd since his teenage years, as his father was before him, but he's moved up and purchased, on credit, his own farm. The work is hard, but he is confident that he will succeed, and takes pride in being his own man. Then one day, a new woman arrives in town. Bathsheeba Everdene is beautiful, headstrong, intelligent, but incurably vain; Farmer Oak falls in love with her immediately. A few months later, he proposes, and is utterly rejected. Bathsheeba moves on to care for her dying uncle, and take over his farm. Gabriel continues farming - until tragedy strikes.
He and Bathsheeba will cross paths again, this time not as lovers, but as mistress and servant. Bathsheeba's beauty, vanity and impetuousness leave a trail of carnage in her wake, and Gabriel can only watch on as lives are destroyed, farms are ruined, and his own heart is crushed repeatedly.
Hardy is famous for his fatalism, and this is displayed no more than in the character of Bathsheba Everdene. She is not an evil person, as the above summary would suggest - but her stunning beauty and fierce intelligence combine with her vanity and impulsivity to create something like a force of nature, and though she means only good she seems to be able to do nothing but wrong by those who care for her. She has no more control over her nature than she does over the weather. One of the most interesting aspects of this character is that her vices - vanity, impulsivity, which Hardy attributes to her being young and beautiful - lead to the downfall of others, but she is continuously saved from downfall by her own intelligence and inner personal strength.
REal tragedy finally does strike Bathsheba, but rather than let it destroy her as retribution for her wicked ways, she grows from it. We may not be able to escape the hardship of life, Hardy seems to be saying, but we can grow and prosper by learning from it.
This was a fantastically entertaining book. The only warning that I could give with it is that it is slow-moving. The action comes in fits and spurts, and Hardy has a penchant for elaborate descriptions of the countryside, for farmhouses, churches and festivals. They are beautifully written, but take time to digest fully. Highly recommended.
No need for titles November 29, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
vivid, lucidly written, conjuring up images of serene hillsides and country life at every opportunity; you never feel less than a central part of the story, being able, thanks to Hardy's joyous descriptions, to picture every scne and character in the greatest of detail and desiring nothing more than to join the number of Wessex's inhabitants. Truly a wonderful book.
A masterpiece of brilliant fiction October 3, 2005
This book has everything - sumptuous and beautiful prose, brilliantly realized characters, a magnificent page-turning plot, superb use of the English language, and a relatively happy ending. If you ever thought Thomas Hardy was not for you, read this book, it will change your mind forever. A classic among classics. Hardy's ability to construct sentences that perfectly convey the message is second to none. His use of vocabulary, his powers of decription, and his uncanny insight into human nature will make you practially weep with envy.
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