Jude the Obscure

Re-issue. 8vo. 486pp. Teal-blue cloth boards, lettered in ecru to spine. B/w map of Wessex, preface, postscript, notes. Jacket design by Peter Feierabend. Series editor: Michael Hulse. Volume editor: David Morley.

Listed in The Observer's All-Time 100 Best Novels [2003]. First titled The Simpletons, then Hearts Insurgent, it originally appeared as an abridged serial in Harper's New Monthly Magazine between December 1894 and November 1895. First issued in book form by Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., in 1896 [but 1895], as vol. viii in its uniform 'Wessex Novels' series. The definitive version of the novel, restoring all the bowdlerised references to sex and religion, would have to wait until Macmillan's 1912 edition, although Hardy continued to tinker with the text for the rest of his life.

A stonemason's doomed romance with his cousin. Hardy's last and fiercest of his sequence of Wessex novels, Jude the Obscure signalled a decisive break with prevailing Victorian mores and registers. Scandalised critics proffered a harsh reception; it is thought largely for this reason Hardy made the decision to produce only poetry and drama for his remaining 32 years. "The greatest tragic writer among English novelists." –Virginia Woolf

[Purdy pp. 86–91]