Far From The Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy’s fourth novel, originally published in 1874 as a serial for Cornhill Magazine. Hardy was a Victorian poet and novelist writing in the Realist tradition. The novel is the first to be set in Hardy’s Wessex, a fictitious region of England modeled after his own Dorset and named after the early Saxon kingdom in the same region. Like much of Hardy’s work, the novel explores rural, Victorian-era English society and counters its traditional, idyllic portrayal with a rougher, more complicated depiction. The novel was well received. It has been adapted many times for radio, stage, and screen, including a 2015 film adaptation starring Carey Mulligan and Michael Sheen.

Plot Summary

The novel begins in the town of Norcombe, where Gabriel Oak is a young farmer. One day, he makes the acquaintance of Bathsheba Everdene, who is staying with her aunt nearby, when she saves him from accidental suffocation. He quickly falls in love and asks her to marry him; however, she rejects his proposal and soon moves away to nearby Weatherbury. Shortly thereafter, Gabriel’s sheepdog in training mistakenly drives his entire flock over a cliff, bankrupting Gabriel.