Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" (Bloom's Notes)

by HaroldBloom (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  1996

  $4.64

• Used

  Paperback
  1988

  $3.45

  The Longman Study Texts are designed to cover a wide range of classics and modern writers and the full range of literary genres. They are geared to both examination and coursework requirements at GCSE level with many texts for A level study and they aim to avoid examination short cuts such as plot summaries or potted character sketches. This text of Tess of the d'Urbervilles is accompanied here by editorial introductions and notes and questions which aim to give GCSE and A level students the opportunity to explore the characters, ideas and situations within the book. A personal essay by a writer who has close contact with the living theatre is also included.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1983

  $3.45

• New

  Paperback
  1992

  $7.46

  Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury. Set in Hardy's Wessex, Tess is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its challenging sub-title, A Pure Woman, infuriated critics when the book was first published in 1891, and it was condemned as immoral and pessimistic. It tells of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of d'Urbeville. In her search for respectability her fortunes fluctuate wildly, and the story assumes the proportions of a Greek tragedy. It explores Tess's relationships with two very different men, her struggle against the social mores of the rural Victorian world which she inhabits and the hypocrisy of the age. In addressing the double standards of the time, Hardy's masterly evocation of a world which we have lost, provides one of the most compelling stories in the canon of English literature, whose appeal today defies the judgement of Hardy's contemporary critics.

• New

  Hardcover
  1991

  $16.69

  Set in the bleak, magical Wessex landscape so familiar from Hardy's early work, Tess's cruel story reveals circumstances slowly closing in on her as she attempts to grasp a few moments of happiness with her lover. Patricia Ingham is the author of Thomas Hardy: A Feminist Reading.