description: A Facsimile of the Manuscript With Related Materials (Thomas Hardy Archive), 2 volumesHardy tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, a beautiful young woman living with her impoverished family in Wessex, the southwestern English county immortalized by Hardy. After the family learns of their connection to the wealthy d'Urbervilles, they send Tess to claim a portion of their fortune. She meets and is seduced by the dissolute Alec d'Urberville and secretly bears a child, Sorrow, who dies in infancy. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer Tess love and salvation, but he rejects her—on their wedding night—after learning of her past. Emotionally bereft, financially impoverished, and victimized by the self-righteous rigidity of English social morality, Tess escapes from her vise of passion through a horrible, desperate act.
language: English
title: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
titlecomplete: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
characters: Alec D'Urberville, Angel Clare, Tess Durbeyfield
genres: Literature, British Literature, Classics, Novels, Classic Literature, Victorian, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance
ratings_count: 276768
places: United Kingdom, Dorset, England
publisher: Dissertations-G