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Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Classics)
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Thomas Hardy
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $8.00
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Thomas Hardy
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780141439655
ISBN: 0141439653
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2003-04-29
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product Release Date: 2003-04-29
Studio: Penguin Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780141439655
ISBN: 0141439653
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2003-04-29
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Product Release Date: 2003-04-29
Studio: Penguin Classics
Editorial Review of Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Classics)
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Rosemarie Morgan with Shannon Russell.
Customer Reviews of Far from the Madding Crowd (Penguin Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: One of the All-Time Greats of English Lit
Review: A new bride, a screwdriver and the coffin in the sitting room -- if for no other reason, this book is a MUST for that scene.
I take issue with the reviewer who described Bathsheba as "not an evil person," but rather "a force of nature." In fact, she's the protagonist of the story. Like any tragic hero, she's flawed, and by her own unique brand of hubris. With her spunkiness, grit, beauty and abject stupidity about men, she's more of a thinking person's Scarlett O'Hara, if you ask me.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: My first Hardy novel, and will not be the last
Review: It took me a while to get into the author's style of writing, along with the dialect of the country folk, but once into it and the story it was very enjoyable. There are times where the author goes on with descriptions of the countryside, farming life, etc. and the story lulls a bit at those times, but then picks up again.
All in all well told and I am looking forward to more from this author.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Forces of Nature
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Read this Classic and escape for several hours life's madding hour!
Review: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is one of the glories of English Literature. Hardy wrote this novel in serial form for the Cornhill magazine edited by Leslie Stephen (father of novelist Virginia Woolf). In this Penguin Classic editon the editors have chosen to present the novel in the manuscript form in which Hardy first wrote it. The book is, therefore, free of the changes made by the Cornhill staff in which they sought to remove any improper language and changed some of the names.
The book was made into an outstanding movie in 1967 with Julie Christie as Bathsheba who has to choose three lovers. The bellicose sexy sergeant Frank Troy; the stolid and mentally disturbed rich farmer Boldwood and the reliable shepherd Gabriel Oak. What ensues is a tragedy filled with those ironical situations so beloved of the sceptical mind of Thomas Hardy.
All Hardy novels set in his mythical Wessex are filled with
rural humorous types and include many allusions culled from the
Bible and mythological subjects.
Hardy was greatest when he described the lush English countryside of southern England. His evocations of dawn breaking, snow falling and leaves tumbling to the groud are
beautifully drawn. The scenes of sheepshearing, barn burning
and the routines of rural life in 19th century England are
richly drawn.
This novel was authored shortly before Hardy wed his wife
and shows the novelist at the beginning of his great career.
Some readers may have trouble with the extensive use of dialect for the farmer characters but this novel is to be read
and savored and remembered long!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The perfect book, pretty well
Review: I'm not sure that this book qualifies as one of the greatest of all time, but it is certainly one of my all-time favorites. My first aquaintance with the story was seeing the 1967 movies, with Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Peter Finch, and Alan Bates as the four main characters. (If you haven't seen it, this movie is very much worth the trouble.) Of course seeing the movie first has somewhat influenced the mental images of the characters in my head, despite the blonde, blue-eyed Christie playing the dark-haired, dark-eyed Bathsheba Everdene.
Yes, the story is about a beautiful women and the three men who court her, marry her, die for her, and swing for her (almost). There are lots of interesting sociological and historical topics here, and a great deal of the drama and pathos of the plot stems from the completely defenceless position of a women who, whatever wealth she may possess, essentially loses all control over her life when she marries someone whom, in contemporary terms, we might call a serial abuser.
But for me the real attraction of the book is the wonderful portrayal of nineteenth century rural life and the beautifully handled dialogue which is full of humor, pathos, and ultimately tragedy.
So, although in some respects the plot is not all the dissimilar from your typical Mills & Boon type scenario, there is much, much more in this book, and by the time you finish reading it, you have experienced a totally absorbing emotional rollercoaster ride and it is hard to say goodbye to these characters who truly come to life in the imagination.
Very, very highly recommended.
Review Summary: One of the All-Time Greats of English Lit
Review: A new bride, a screwdriver and the coffin in the sitting room -- if for no other reason, this book is a MUST for that scene.
I take issue with the reviewer who described Bathsheba as "not an evil person," but rather "a force of nature." In fact, she's the protagonist of the story. Like any tragic hero, she's flawed, and by her own unique brand of hubris. With her spunkiness, grit, beauty and abject stupidity about men, she's more of a thinking person's Scarlett O'Hara, if you ask me.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: My first Hardy novel, and will not be the last
Review: It took me a while to get into the author's style of writing, along with the dialect of the country folk, but once into it and the story it was very enjoyable. There are times where the author goes on with descriptions of the countryside, farming life, etc. and the story lulls a bit at those times, but then picks up again.
All in all well told and I am looking forward to more from this author.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Forces of Nature
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Read this Classic and escape for several hours life's madding hour!
Review: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is one of the glories of English Literature. Hardy wrote this novel in serial form for the Cornhill magazine edited by Leslie Stephen (father of novelist Virginia Woolf). In this Penguin Classic editon the editors have chosen to present the novel in the manuscript form in which Hardy first wrote it. The book is, therefore, free of the changes made by the Cornhill staff in which they sought to remove any improper language and changed some of the names.
The book was made into an outstanding movie in 1967 with Julie Christie as Bathsheba who has to choose three lovers. The bellicose sexy sergeant Frank Troy; the stolid and mentally disturbed rich farmer Boldwood and the reliable shepherd Gabriel Oak. What ensues is a tragedy filled with those ironical situations so beloved of the sceptical mind of Thomas Hardy.
All Hardy novels set in his mythical Wessex are filled with
rural humorous types and include many allusions culled from the
Bible and mythological subjects.
Hardy was greatest when he described the lush English countryside of southern England. His evocations of dawn breaking, snow falling and leaves tumbling to the groud are
beautifully drawn. The scenes of sheepshearing, barn burning
and the routines of rural life in 19th century England are
richly drawn.
This novel was authored shortly before Hardy wed his wife
and shows the novelist at the beginning of his great career.
Some readers may have trouble with the extensive use of dialect for the farmer characters but this novel is to be read
and savored and remembered long!
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The perfect book, pretty well
Review: I'm not sure that this book qualifies as one of the greatest of all time, but it is certainly one of my all-time favorites. My first aquaintance with the story was seeing the 1967 movies, with Julie Christie, Terence Stamp, Peter Finch, and Alan Bates as the four main characters. (If you haven't seen it, this movie is very much worth the trouble.) Of course seeing the movie first has somewhat influenced the mental images of the characters in my head, despite the blonde, blue-eyed Christie playing the dark-haired, dark-eyed Bathsheba Everdene.
Yes, the story is about a beautiful women and the three men who court her, marry her, die for her, and swing for her (almost). There are lots of interesting sociological and historical topics here, and a great deal of the drama and pathos of the plot stems from the completely defenceless position of a women who, whatever wealth she may possess, essentially loses all control over her life when she marries someone whom, in contemporary terms, we might call a serial abuser.
But for me the real attraction of the book is the wonderful portrayal of nineteenth century rural life and the beautifully handled dialogue which is full of humor, pathos, and ultimately tragedy.
So, although in some respects the plot is not all the dissimilar from your typical Mills & Boon type scenario, there is much, much more in this book, and by the time you finish reading it, you have experienced a totally absorbing emotional rollercoaster ride and it is hard to say goodbye to these characters who truly come to life in the imagination.
Very, very highly recommended.