The Originals Tess of The D'Urbervilles

Tess is the lovely, sweet and innocent girl next door. Her purity is at the base of the many problems she will face throughout the novel. Tess has been brought up uneducated, as her mother doesn’t feel education is appropriate. She is innocent so can’t see the threat of unwanted attentions. She is honest, so ends up losing what she wants most in the world. And her final decision has a terrible, inevitable finality, given the morality of the time. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is possibly Hardy’s most controversial novel. It is a gritty introduction to the darker side of society with an exploration of how double standards, illegitimate childbearing, rape and murder are handled in a highly moralistic society. Subtitled “A Pure Woman”, the reader is challenged to join Tess on life’s journey and judge without piety, whether Tess is the sinner, or the sinned against. This edition is beautifully illustrated by images from D. A. Wehrschmidt, Hubert Von Herkomer, Joseph Syddall and E. Borough Johnson, produced for the serialisation by the London Graphic in 1891.