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Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Classics) Paperback – April 29, 2003

by Thomas Hardy (Author), Shannon Russell (Editor), Rosemarie Morgan (Editor)

4.3 6,315 ratings

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Thomas Hardy’s impassioned novel of courtship in rural life

In Thomas Hardy’s first major literary success, independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy, and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. One of his first works set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, Hardy’s novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.

This edition, based on Hardy’s original 1874 manuscript, is the complete novel he never saw published, and restores its full candor and innovation. Rosemarie Morgan’s introduction discusses the history of its publication, as well as the biblical and classical allusions that permeate the novel.

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.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Far from the Madding Crowd is the first of Thomas Hardy’s great novels, and the first to sound the tragic note
for which his fiction is best remembered.”
-Margaret Drabble

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), whose writing immortalized the semi-fictional Wessex countryside and dramatized his sense of the inevitable tragedy of life, wrote fifteen novels, including The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). He is also renowned as one of the greatest poets of his era.

Rosemarie Morgan is a professor of English at Yale. Her many works on Thomas Hardy include Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy and Cancelled Words: Rediscovering Thomas Hardy.

Shannon Russell is an assistant professor of English at John Cabot University in Rome.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter I Description of Farmer Oak—An Incident

When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.

His Christian name was Gabriel,and on working days he was a young man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good character. On Sundays he was a man of misty views, rather given to postponing, and hampered by his best clothes and umbrella: upon the whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally that vast middle space of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communion people of the parish and the drunken section,—that is, he went to church, but yawned privately by the time the congregation reached the Nicene creed, and thought of what there would be for dinner when he meant to be listening to the sermon. Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture.

Since he lived six times as many working-days as Sundays, Oak’s appearance in his old clothes was most peculiarly his own—the mental picture formed by his neighbours in imagining him being always dressed in that way. He wore a low-crowned felt hat, spread out at the base by tight jamming upon the head for security in high winds, and a coat like Dr. Johnson’s,4 his lower extremities being encased in ordinary leather leggings and boots emphatically large, affording to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed that any wearer might stand in a river all day long and know nothing of damp—their maker being a conscientious man who endeavoured to compensate for any weakness in his cut by unstinted dimension and solidity.

Mr. Oak carried about him, by way of watch, what may be called a small silver clock; in other words, it was a watch as to shape and intention, and a small clock as to size. This instrument being several years older than Oak’s grandfather, had the peculiarity of going either too fast or not at all. The smaller of its hands, too, occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, though the minutes were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of the hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity of his watch Oak remedied by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any evil consequences from the other two defects by constant comparisons with and observations of the sun and stars, and by pressing his face close to the glass of his neighbours’ windows, till he could discern the hour marked by the green-faced timekeepers within. It may be mentioned that Oak’s fob being difficult of access, by reason of its somewhat high situation in the waistband of his trousers (which also lay at a remote height under his waistcoat), the watch was as a necessity pulled out by throwing the body to one side, compressing the mouth and face to a mere mass of ruddy flesh on account of the exertion, and drawing up the watch by its chain, like a bucket from a well.

But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across one of his fields on a certain December morning—sunny and exceedingly mild—might have regarded Gabriel Oak in other aspects than these. In his face one might notice that many of the hues and curves of youth had tarried on to manhood: there even remained in his remoter crannies some relics of the boy. His height and breadth would have been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been exhibited with due consideration. But there is a way some men have, rural and urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than flesh and sinew: it is a way of curtailing their dimensions by their manner of showing them. And from a quiet modesty that would have become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him that he had no great claim on the world’s room, Oak walked unassumingly, and with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct from a bowing of the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect in an individual if he depends for his valuation more upon his appearance than upon his capacity to wear well, which Oak did not.

He had just reached the time of life at which “young” is ceasing to be the prefix of “man” in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly separated: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. In short, he was twenty-eight, and a bachelor.

The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called Norcombe Hill. Through a spur of this hill ran the highway between Emminster and Chalk-Newton. Casually glancing over the hedge, Oak saw coming down the incline before him an ornamental spring waggon, painted yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, a waggoner walking alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly. The waggon was laden with household goods and window plants, and on the apex of the whole sat a woman, young and attractive. Gabriel had not beheld the sight for more than half a minute, when the vehicle was brought to a standstill just beneath his eyes.

“The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss,” said the waggoner.

“Then I heard it fall,” said the girl, in a soft, though not particularly low voice. “I heard a noise I could not account for when we were coming up the hill.”

“I’ll run back.”

“Do,” she answered.

The sensible horses stood perfectly still, and the waggoner’s steps sank fainter and fainter in the distance.

The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by tables and chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle, and ornamented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses, together with a caged canary—all probably from the windows of the house just vacated. There was also a cat in a willow basket, from the partly-opened lid of which she gazed with half-closed eyes, and affectionately surveyed the small birds around.

The handsome girl waited for some time idly in her place, and the only sound heard in the stillness was the hopping of the canary up and down the perches of its prison. Then she looked attentively downwards. It was not at the bird, nor at the cat; it was at an oblong package tied in paper, and lying between them. She turned her head to learn if the waggoner were coming. He was not yet in sight; and her eyes crept back to the package, her thoughts seeming to run upon what was inside it. At length she drew the article into her lap, and untied the paper covering; a small swing looking-glass was disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself attentively. She parted her lips and smiled.

It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up to a scarlet glow the crimson jacket she wore, and painted a soft lustre upon her bright face and dark hair. The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses packed around her were fresh and green, and at such a leafless season they invested the whole concern of horses, waggon, furniture, and girl with a peculiar vernal charm. What possessed her to indulge in such a performance in the sight of the sparrows, blackbirds, and unperceived farmer who were alone its spectators,—whether the smile began as a factitious one, to test her capacity in that art,—nobody knows; it ended certainly in a real smile. She blushed at herself, and seeing her reflection blush, blushed the more.

The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of such an act—from the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling out of doors—lent to the idle deed a novelty it did not intrinsically possess. The picture was a delicate one. Woman’s prescriptive infirmity had stalked into the sunlight, which had clothed it in the freshness of an originality. A cynical inference was irresistible by Gabriel Oak as he regarded the scene, generous though he fain would have been. There was no necessity whatever for her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or pat her hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that any such intention had been her motive in taking up the glass. She simply observed herself as a fair product of Nature in the feminine kind, her thoughts seeming to glide into far-off though likely dramas in which men would play a part—vistas of probable triumphs—the smiles being of a phase suggesting that hearts were imagined as lost and won. Still, this was but conjecture, and the whole series of actions was so idly put forth as to make it rash to assert that intention had any part in them at all.

The waggoner’s steps were heard returning. She put the glass in the paper, and the whole again into its place.

When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel withdrew from his point of espial, and descending into the road, followed the vehicle to the turnpike-gate some way beyond the bottom of the hill, where the object of his contemplation now halted for the payment of toll. About twenty steps still remained between him and the gate, when he heard a dispute. It was a difference concerning twopence between the persons with the waggon and the man at the toll-bar.

“Mis’ess’s niece is upon the top of the things, and she says that’s enough that I’ve offered ye, you great miser, and she won’t pay any more.” These were the waggoner’s words.

“Very well; then mis’ess’s niece can’t pass,” said the turnpike-keeper, closing the gate.

Oak looked from one to the other of the disputants, and fell into a reverie. There was something in the tone of twopence remarkably insignificant. Threepence had a definite value as money—it was an appreciable infringement on a day’s wages, and, as such, a higgling matter; but twopence——“Here,” he said, stepping forward and handing twopence to the gatekeeper; “let the young woman pass.” He looked up at her then; she heard his words, and looked down.

Gabriel’s features adhered throughout their form so exactly to the middle line between the beauty of St. John and the ugliness of Judas Iscariot, as represented in a window of the church he attended, that not a single lineament could be selected and called worthy either of distinction or notoriety. The red-jacketed and dark-haired maiden seemed to think so too, for she carelessly glanced over him, and told her man to drive on. She might have looked her thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale, but she did not speak them; more probably she felt none, for in gaining her a passage he had lost her her point, and we know how women take a favour of that kind.

The gatekeeper surveyed the retreating vehicle. “That’s a handsome maid,” he said to Oak.

“But she has her faults,” said Gabriel.

“True, farmer.”

“And the greatest of them is—well, what it is always.”

“Beating people down? ay, ’tis so.”

“O no.”

“What, then?”

Gabriel, perhaps a little piqued by the comely traveller’s indifference, glanced back to where he had witnessed her performance over the hedge, and said, “Vanity.”

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (April 29, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141439653
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141439655
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1110L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.72 x 5.04 x 1.13 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #194,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,058 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #11,030 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #54,326 in Genre Literature & Fiction

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Thomas Hardy
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Thomas Hardy was born in a cottage in Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester, on 2 June 1840. He was educated locally and at sixteen was articled to a Dorchester architect, John Hicks. In 1862 he moved to London and found employment with another architect, Arthur Blomfield. He now began to write poetry and published an essay. By 1867 he had returned to Dorset to work as Hicks's assistant and began his first (unpublished) novel, The Poor Man and the Lady.
On an architectural visit to St Juliot in Cornwall in 1870 he met his first wife, Emma Gifford. Before their marriage in 1874 he had published four novels and was earning his living as a writer. More novels followed and in 1878 the Hardys moved from Dorset to the London literary scene. But in 1885, after building his house at Max Gate near Dorchester, Hardy again returned to Dorset. He then produced most of his major novels: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved (1892) and Jude the Obscure (1895). Amidst the controversy caused by Jude the Obscure, he turned to the poetry he had been writing all his life. In the next thirty years he published over nine hundred poems and his epic drama in verse, The Dynasts.
After a long and bitter estrangement, Emma Hardy died at Max Gate in 1912. Paradoxically, the event triggered some of Hardy's finest love poetry. In 1914, however, he married Florence Dugdale, a close friend for several years. In 1910 he had been awarded the Order of Merit and was recognized, even revered, as the major literary figure of the time. He died on 11 January 1928. His ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey and his heart at Stinsford in Dorset.
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MJ Smith

A Classic that sweeps you away with one of the great love stories in literature

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2015

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This is a classic I had put off reading for way to long and now I am so glad I read it. This definitely ranks up there with Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice as a wonderful romantic novel, set in the gorgeous English countryside, with a strong female character, who is flawed at times by her youthful impetuousness and pride, but she is someone you really admire, full of conviction and fearless in going into a stuffy world of British men and not being bound by the rules.

Bathsheba Everdene inherits the large estate of Weatherby from his Uncle. Right before that she had been living with her aunt, where she meets a strong and up and coming sheep farming named Gabriel Oak who is utterly enchanted by Bathsheba. As she leaves to accept her inheritance poor Gabriel loses everything, almost his whole flock, and what we see, is how in his honorable way, he sells off the remaining flock to pay off his debts and set off to look for work. He is a wonderfully stalwart, honest and hardworking man. But he still dreams of Bathsheba. It turns out he ends up getting employed by Bathsheba to be the shepherd. And although Gabriel stays forever in love with her, he accepts his fate to never be romantic with her, but looks after her farm as a faithful servant. While Bathsheba, learns about running a farm, clearly something women are not known to do, she boldly takes on this task and becomes the talk of the town, as well the woman he most men in the town are smitten by.

There is a lot of wonderful writing in this story of Bathsheba at times showing her youth as she playfully but insensitively sends a valentine to her neighbor, who is madly in love with her. And I love this part of the story, because when she realizes what she's done, she actually grows up some and tries hard to let him down. Then she herself gets swept off her feet when meets the Sergeant Troy, the handsome, bad boy if you will, who charms ladies off their feet, but he is shallow and reckless. All the while Gabriel stays steadfast and there is a constant sweet tension between them that the author builds. Gabriel himself grows, letting go of her, which actually only begins to fuel Bathsheba's feelings for him, after all, she is used to every man being in love with her.

The book is written in an older English style, which is charming, but at times you may have to read some passages twice to make sure you understand it clearly, but all of that adds a charm that sweeps you away. This is a classic and a really great story.

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BOB

…But not far from madness

Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2015

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'Far from the Madding Crowd' is the earliest of Thomas Hardy's novels that I have read (published in 1874) and it is the most optimistic as well. Some have said that Hardy's own engagement to his first wife and ensuing wedding at the time that he completed its composition may have influenced his happy ending. This is often the arc of many authors' works—beginning idealism in the early phase, tempered by more experience and depth in the middle phase and often disillusion based on more observed experience that confirms pessimistic suspicions reflected in the final phase. Not that it doesn't contain tragedy, but the tragedy can largely be limited to individuals rather than extrapolated to the society as a whole.

One of the first things people often cite about Hardy's work is the beautiful pastoral setting of his fictional county of Wessex. Hardy does have a predilection for rural settings populated by farming communities. It is a well-worn cliché, nevertheless true, that the people in these settings are more connected to the land and the seasons than most urban dwellers. Their lives depend on a knowledge of its needs and the fluctuations of the weather. A spreading wildfire and a severe thunderstorm both play a role at key points in the story.

Bathsheba Everdene is as beautiful, vain and proud as one might expect a character possessing that name. Her one constant is Gabriel Oak, a shepherd that oversees her flocks and stays in her employment even after he has proposed marriage and been refused. William Boldwood is a middle-aged prosperous farmer in the area. A thoughtless prank of Bathsheba's, sending him a valentine asking him to marry her, inflames his passion and he becomes as monomaniacal as Ahab in a relentless campaign to make her his wife. She doesn't love Boldwood at all and is not in the least interested but she gives weak lip service to consent to considering a marriage to him. Meanwhile, she meets Sergeant Frank Troy, who has returned to his home village. Troy is a handsome, flirtatious charmer who woos her with somewhat more finesse than Boldwood until she is infatuated with him against her better judgment. Common sense flies out the window and she marries him secretly.

The primary difference between Boldwood and Troy on one hand, and Gabriel Oak on the other, is that she is merely a possession in both of their minds. Boldwood wants to crush her independence, put her on a pedestal and worship her as a prized possession, pampered and without any independent will. Troy woos her as a lark. He claims that he really loves a farm worker named Fanny, even though he has abandoned her and left her pregnant and fending for herself. He grows tired of married life with Bathsheba and merely wants to live off of her and drain her financial reserves to feed his gambling appetite.

Oak, on the other hand, is the only one who cares about Bathsheba but also cares about what she cares about—her farm. While Troy is drinking at his wedding party and forcing the farm hands to join his revels, Oak is frantically trying to protect the harvested crop from an approaching thunderstorm. For Gabriel, love is not expressed through words but by action. His focus and discipline result in advancement to the point where Boldwood wants him to oversee both Bathsheba's and his farms. Gabriel's common sense reliability enables him to prevail while Boldwood and Troy speed toward disaster.

Hardy is not the only 19th century novelist to depict women making bad decisions and learning from them. George Eliot and Henry James are both masters at depicting women making unwise choices and living with the consequences. Where 'Far from the Madding Crowd' falls short slightly is in the depth of characterization of Bathsheba. Granted, she's beautiful and headstrong but we've seen similar characters elsewhere whose depths and motives are explored much more thoroughly. She is ultimately not as interesting as Isabel Archer or Dorothea Brooke and I cared far more about the fate of Gabriel Oak than I did about hers. She is not necessarily shallow but she comes to realize the magnitude of her personal dilemma at a point when there is no graceful exit strategy possible. To her credit she does face up to living with the consequences of her actions and fulfilling her moral obligation.

I do not intend for these quibbles to discourage anyone from reading this very engaging early novel. After a few slow starts, Hardy builds up the momentum of his narrative. Only the fact that I remembered enough of the 1967 film version that I saw quite few years ago tipped me off about certain plot developments. Looking backwards from the conclusion of the novel one can see that, while there may have been certain contrivances of plot, the paths individual characters took were natural and inevitable.

Hardy's depiction of this remote farming life feels utterly authentic. These characters cannot be separated from the landscape they occupy. Hardy's knowledge of this life and his affection for the inhabitants of this world are undeniable. The abandoned young pregnant mother and the man whose talents are not recognized beyond what his class requires are character types he would explore more thoroughly and tragically in his later masterpieces. As an early work promising more fulfilling work to come, 'Far from the Madding Crowd' is certainly worthy and as good a place to start with Hardy as any for those who want to get a lay of the land and soak up the local color first before learning all the deep dark secrets of its residents.

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Darlene

To Marry or Not To Marry

Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2015

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Far From The Madding Crowd is a brilliantly written classical novel. Thomas Hardy is a master of characterization and exquisitely developed and lavishly detailed settings. The depth of his skill allows his readers to feel they are experiencing the novel they are reading. This is a challenging novel to read due to the archaic, English language of the nineteenth century, but it is the language of the common-folk which really brings this story to life. The story revolves around the author's heroine, Bathsheba, and her three suitors: Gabriel Oak, Sergeant Francis Troy and William Boldwood. Bathsheba, an independent, strong-willed, young woman, who bravely defies convention, nevertheless, is a flawed character that fate treats very unkindly. The story is classic Thomas Hardy, who always wrote sympathetically of the plight of women in the Victorian period of England; thus, his heroines are generally seen as tragic characters in his novels. As an English major, I have always been drawn to his novels and consider him to be the best of all English authors. Having recently seen the film version of this novel, I can state that the movie was true to Hardy's written prose, minus the challenging vocabulary and the local vernacular of that period of English history. However, it is the well-developed novel itself that resonates in the mind and is truly a masterpiece of literature.

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Simon Omnes

“Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.” - Thomas Hardy

Reviewed in Canada on February 16, 2023

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When I first discovered the cinema of UK actor Alan Bates, I found out that he had done with John Schlesinger —an important UK director — a movie called Far From the Madding Crowd. Based on the first success of novelist Thomas Hardy, that novel presented an amazing naturalist drama set in the county of Wessex; a location known only in the writer’s novels. Through this countryside, it allows his stories to be connected in the same area; making them jigsaw pieces presenting a giant community’s painting.

In this novel, we discover how a poor farmer named Bathsheba inherits her late uncle’s farm properties after he passed away. As he was rich and powerful in the area, she experiences an incredible Cinderella story as she now manages many employees, lives in luxurious conditions, and becomes the centre of attention of individuals who’d never be interested in her before her success.

Indeed, soon after her arrival, three men of different origins court her. First, by Sergeant Troy; a dashing officer whose passion and rebellious attitude hides a troubling history. Then, by Mr. Boldwood, an misanthropic farmer who believes she loves him after she sent him a prank love card. And finally, by Gabriel Oak, a sheep herder that she knew years before she inherited her uncle’s wealth. A devoted young man who has always been devoted to her, never afraid to tell her when she is going too far, or when she is treading on dangerous grounds.

Indeed, as her joke toward Mr. Boldwood was meant as a childish trick with no ill intention, it nevertheless generates in this man an obsession and feelings for her that builds up to a tragic drama. A drama between her, Boldwood, and Troy; with the other employees and Gabriel as witnesses.

With this first success, Thomas Hardy became known in the literary business. First published monthly in Cornhill Magazine, then presented in a final Wessex version in 1912, Far from the Madding Crowd presents a naturalistic view of farmers lifestyle and culture. With detailed descriptions of the farming business, of the landscape, and of the protagonists. Colorful images that set us right into this area. Right into the routines and habits of the protagonists, into the locations that they live in or explore. And the content is quite descriptive. So readers who are used to reading books with spare descriptions or not much extensive details will have to prepare themselves for the incredible prose in here. A beautiful painting of a memorable community that you do not want to leave.

In its plotline, the novel has many religious undertones through God, the Bible, and its parables; beautiful references to the name of Bathsheba, who’s the wife of Uriag the Hittite, while with Gabriel Oak, his profession reminds us of David the shepherd. Of that latter protagonist, he really is the voice of common sense for that woman as her success and wealth does go to her head a little bit and it makes her do foolish acts that cause more problems.

Furthermore, this story reminds us how the beauty of humanity and of love can be found in people that we never expected to have them. Also, it shows the impact of reckless acts upon others, even when the intents behind them were not ill-intended. And for readers who want to have a good look of life back in the nineteenth century, they can obtain it with Far From the Madding Crowd.

A novel that I enjoyed listening to with Rick Wakeman’s piano compositions set around the English countryside. Music whose ambience and tones correspond so well with Thomas Hardy’s drama.

In sum, Far from the Madding Crowd is an excellent introduction to that novelist’s literature and to the English naturalist current, a wave that promoted the depiction of reality as it was. With rigorous descriptions of the world and the protagonists/antagonists.

One person found this helpful

Lilian Ferreira

Ótimo pelo preço pago

Reviewed in Brazil on August 24, 2022

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O livro vem conforme informado, edição simples em papel jornal padrão das edições estrangeiras e com letras pequenas( não é problema pra mim). Pelo preço que paguei achei ótimo! Jamais acharia em livrarias físicas um livro em inglês tão barato quanto os que a Amazon oferece.