Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy
First published 1895 · English · 534 pages
- Novels
- Historical fiction
- Love and romance
Hardy's last novel follows Jude Fawley, a poor stonemason in southern England who dreams of studying at the university town he calls Christminster. Class barriers and money troubles stand in his way, and his emotional life is just as difficult. He becomes close to his cousin Sue Bridehead, an independent and unconventional thinker. The book looks at education, marriage, religion, and social expectation with great frankness. Its reception was so hostile that Hardy turned away from fiction afterward.
Quotes
Done because we are too menny.
But nobody did come, because nobody does; and under the crushing recognition of his gigantic error Jude continued to wish himself out of the world.
Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can’t get out of it if we would!
Their lives were ruined, he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had no necessary connection with affinities that alone render a lifelong comradeship tolerable.