Item Condition: Used; good although has a couple of cup-ring marks on the cover.
JUDE THE OBSCURE
COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED
You are Joseph the dreamer of dreams, dear Jude,
and a tragic Don Quixote. And sometimes you are
St Stephen, who while they were stoning him,
could see Heaven opened. O my poor friend and
comrade, you'll suffer yet!"
Jude Fawley, a stone-mason, has already suffered. His
academic ambitions were thwarted by his poverty and
class: trapped into a loveless marriage, he is now
alone but not free. He comes to love his cousin Sue
who, seemingly emancipated, is herself miserably
married. Sue's words to Jude are prophetic, for
although together they defy conventional morality to
seize a chance of happiness, they are ultimately
defeated by both circumstance and the flaws within
their own nature.
Thomas Hardy's last novel is focused on the themes
of sex and marriage. The tragedy of Jude's struggle for
happiness is intensified by the lack of opportunity for
the ordinary man to improve his lot, despite the
changes and developments of Victorian society.