Novels & Major Fiction Codexery

Jude the Obscure

Hardy's final novel explores thwarted ambition and social constraints.

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Jude the Obscure is Thomas Hardy's final published novel, featuring a working-class stonemason named Jude Fawley who aspires to become a scholar.[1][2] The novel's controversial depiction of sex and religion led some bookstores to sell it in brown paper bags.[3] Jude Fawley, a working-class stonemason, and his cousin Sue Bridehead, who becomes his love interest, are the central figures in a narrative that addresses class, education, religion, morality, and marriage.[1][2]

Making and release

Hardy began making notes for a story about a working man's frustrated university ambitions around 1887, possibly inspired by his friend Horace Moule's suicide.[4] The novel was first published in book form in November 1895, though the title page says 1896.[1] Hardy's last novel, Jude the Obscure, was released in 1895.[5] The novel received harsh criticism, with some scandalised critics calling it "Jude the Obscene"[6]

Hardy later commented that after hostile press verdicts, the book's next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop.[3] Some have suggested negative criticism caused Hardy to stop writing novels, but poet C. H. Sisson called this hypothesis "superficial and absurd"[7] The Guardian notes that Hardy, stung by the hostile response, never wrote another novel.[8] Harper's New Monthly Magazine serialized a sanitized version of the novel from December 1894 to November 1895, first calling it The Simpletons and later Hearts Insurgent.[4]

Hardy later stated that the Bishop of Wakefield, Walsham How, had destroyed a copy of the book by fire.[7]

What the cited sources add

A 2020 newspaper article reports that one Anglican clergyman destroyed his own copy of the novel.[3] The same source notes that Colby College Library holds a world-renowned collection of Hardy first editions from curator Carl J. Weber.[3] The Guardian's 2015 list ranks Jude the Obscure as number 20 among the 100 best novels written in English.[8][9] The novel also appears at number 23 on the BBC's list of the 100 greatest British novels.[9]

According to contemporary reviewers, the novel's themes mirrored aspects of Hardy's own experience as a working-class intellectual.[10] Hardy's personal struggles with higher education and working-class status are connected to the novel's depiction of fighting against rigid class divisions.[11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Jude the Obscure" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hardy, "Jude the Obscure", Cambridge University Press, 2014; "HARDY, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. London: Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co., 1896 [but 1895].", www.christies.com; "Jude the Obscure novel by Hardy", Encyclopedia Britannica (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Jude the Obscure" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Thomas Hardy", 4 August 2019 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Cates, "REVIEW POTPOURRI: Thomas Hardy", The Town Line Newspaper, 2020-08-05. facts only, no text reused. townline.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Jude the Obscure" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Pinion, "A Hardy Companion", Palgrave Macmillan, 1968, p. 52 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. "Thomas Hardy", 4 August 2019. facts only, no text reused. bookseriesinorder.com
  6. Wikipedia, "Jude the Obscure" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Book description of Jude the Obscure, edited by Cedric Watts (1999)", Broadviewpress.com (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Jude the Obscure" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Slack, Robert C. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 11(4) (March 1957) pp. 261–275.; Cates, "REVIEW POTPOURRI: Thomas Hardy", The Town Line Newspaper, 2020-08-05; "Introduction" to the Penguin edition (1978). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984, p. 13. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  8. "The 100 best novels written in English", The Guardian, 17 August 2015. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  9. Wikipedia, "Jude the Obscure" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The 100 greatest British novels", 7 December 2015; "The 100 best novels written in English", The Guardian, 17 August 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Jude the Obscure" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hardy, "The Life of Thomas Hardy", Wordsworth Editions, 2007, p. 282 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Jude the Obscure" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hardy, "The Life of Thomas Hardy", Wordsworth Editions, 2007, p. 29; Claire Tomalin, Thomas Hardy: The Time-torn Man (Penguin, 2007) pp. 30, 36. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Jude the Obscure (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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