Showing results for title "Far from the Madding Crowd", by author "Thomas Hardy" in Literary Fiction

Hardy's first major literary success, here brought to life by narrator Nathaniel Parker, is the story of the independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene, who inherits her uncle's farm, the largest estate in the area. She surprises the villagers of Weatherbury by deciding to run it herself. Attracted to this bold young woman are three suitors all vying for her affections. They include the lonely gentleman-farmer Boldwood, the young and handsome but inconsiderate Sergeant Troy and the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak.

Renowned novelist and poet Thomas Hardy is best known for his fatalistic, often tragic novels set in the 'realistic dream-country' of Wessex, in south and south-west England. Drawing on his own life, he created some of the most memorable characters and stories in Victorian literature—many of which are included here. In five dramas taken from Radio 4's 'Hardy's Women' season, we meet a few of Thomas Hardy's most compelling female protagonists.

In rural Victorian England, the willful Bathsheba Everdene is courted by three men: her repressed neighbor, a devoted shepherd, and a thriftless soldier. They cross and clash again and again in tragedy, grief, betrayal, misguided affections, and the follies of romantic love. Though far from the fury of the city, the drama they engender is equal to the whole of the universe in madness and passion.

Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy's fourth novel. It centers on the lives of five characters: Gabriel Oak, Bathsheba Everdene, Mr. Boldwood, Sgt. Troy, and Fanny Robin. The plot involves love, loyalty, death, and betrayal, and all this is delivered to us in Hardy's most eloquent prose. The images of character and nature are painted for our mind's eye with sublime style.

In a remote corner of early Victorian England, where traditional practices remain untouched by time, Bathsheba Everdene stands out as a beacon of feminine independence and self-reliance. However, when confronted with three suitors, among them the dashing Sergeant Troy, she shows a reckless capriciousness which threatens the stability of the whole community.

An immediate success when it was first published in 1874, Thomas Hardy's "pastoral tale" of the wilful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene, her three suitors, the faithful shepherd Gabriel Oak, the lonely widower Farmer Boldwood, and the dashing but faithless Sergeant Troy, and the tragic consequence of her eventual choice remains one of the most enduring and popular English novels.

In this classic novel, Gabriel Oak is a shepherd struggling to get ahead when Bathsheba Everdene moves next door. Although he loves her, she sees him as a friend and rejects him for two other suitors. After she leaves town, she and Gabriel are reunited years later, once everything has changed.

The tale of spirited farmer Bathsheba Everdene and the three suitors who vie for her attention is the first of Hardy’s Wessex novels. Passion and tragedy abound against the backdrop of a 19th-century rural idyll, as Hardy sets the tone for his subsequent forays into the life and love stories of this fictional county.