Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Apr 6, 2026 4:11 PM

Author:Thomas Hardy,Margaret Higonnet,Tim Dolin

'The greatest tragic writer among the English novelists' Virginia Woolf

With its depiction of the wronged 'pure woman' Tess and its powerful criticism of Victorian hypocrisy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels. When its heroine, Tess Durbeyfield, is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.

Edited with notes by TIM DOLIN and an Introduction by MARGARET R. HIGONNET

Reviews

When Tom Sharpe turns his attention to a very minor public school- the result is predictably savage. Hoaxes, chases, car crashes, shootings, and general mayhem. Wicked riotous humour

—— Daily Telegraph

Wildly hilarious pot-shots at the public school system and the sacred cows of adventure fiction

—— Observer

You'll enjoy this wild and, in places, wildly funny story- It is all an hilarious send-up of the Dornford Yates style of thriller with some modernistic Sharpe barbs added

—— Daily Express

One of our best contemporary comic writers- very, very funny

—— Birmingham Evening Mail

Excellently funny

—— Auberon Waugh , Daily Mail

He has not written a better or more skilful farce

—— Financial Times

Britain's leading practitioner of black humour

—— Punch

The year's most impressive debut

—— John Carey , Sunday Times

Like Donna Tartt’s "The Secret History" or a good film noir . . . Jane’s low-key narration has just the right tone to keep readers hooked

—— People magazine

The strength of 'The Lake of Dead Languages' is a silken prose that lures the reader into Goodman’s . . . story of murder, suicide . . . revenge, and madness

—— The Washington Post Book World

Part suspense, part coming-of-age, and all-enthralling . . . A book that needs the roar of a fire to ward off its psychic chill

—— The Denver Post

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