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Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Paperback)

by Thomas Hardy (Author)

4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

Paperback: 544 pages
Publisher: BBC Books (4 Sep 2008)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1846075998
ISBN-13: 978-1846075995
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 3.2 cm

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 65,581 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#17 in Books > Fiction > The Classics > Hardy, Thomas

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Product Description

An exciting new TV adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic Tess of the D'Urbervilles has arrived on BBC 1, and this is the official tie-in edition with an exclusive introduction from the programme's producer David Snodin. A tragic tale of love, seduction and betrayal,Tess of the D'Urbervilles was named the nation's 12th favourite book in a poll for World Book Day in 2007 and 2008 marks the 80th anniversary of the death of Thomas Hardy. This new four-part series has been written by award-winning novelist and screenwriter David Nicholls. David wrote Starter for Ten, which he then adapted to film starring James McAvoy, as well as the screenplay of And When Did You Last See Your Father? starring Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth. Tess of the D'Urbervilles has a stellar cast with big-screen names and familiar faces from a number major TV dramas including Gemma Arterton (James Bond: Quantum Of Solace, St Trinian's) playing Tess, Hans Matheson (The Virgin Queen, Dr Zhivago) as her seducer Alec, Eddie Redmayne (Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Other Boleyn Girl) as Angel and Jodie Whittaker (Venus) playing Tess's best friend Izzy. The drama also features Ruth Jones (Gavin and Stacey, Saxondale) as Tess's mother Joan, and Anna Massey (Oliver Twist, The Importance Of Being Earnest) as Mrs D'Urberville.

About the Author

Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840. The son of a stonemason, he trained as an architect near Dorchester later moving to St Juliot's church in Cornwall, where he met his wife, Emma. By his death in 1928, Hardy had written numerous novels, short stories and poems including Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) The Woodlanders (1887) and his final novel Jude the Obscure (1895) - all of which have been adapted to TV and film. Hardy was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1912 and presented with the Order of Merit by King George V.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you're an adolescent - or still feel like one..., 4 Sep 2008

By	Robert Machin (Hampshire, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

I have to give Tess five stars because no other book I have ever read has moved me to such a degree. Thirty years later I still have my original copy, entirely disintegrated, the glue dissolved, very possibly by my hot adolescent tears. It simply tore me apart - I remember in particular struggling to finish Tess's letter from Flintcomb-Ash through eyes blurred with grief, and that after finishing the book I was well-nigh inconsolable for days. I spent the following summer touring the Dorset locations on my bicycle as a kind of pilgrimage, and remember those cruel hills pretty well too.

But having said that, I was sixteen at the time and emotionally wide open. Reading it just five years later, I could hardly get past the clumsiness and infelicities in the writing and the crude manipulation and melodrama of the plot. How could I have fallen for this? Reading it again another ten years further on I better understood the theatricality of it - it should be read in some ways like the old ballads with which Hardy was very familiar, with their highly exaggerated representations of good and evil - but the magic had gone.

Maybe the key is that Tess is a book written by an emotional adolescent - Hardy was a writer who arguably never really grew up, and his own relationships seem to bear this out - which speaks most forcefully to other adolescents. The melodrama and the suffering, the torment and the injustice which Tess is put through really are meat and drink to the average sensitive adolescent, but seem perhaps a bit foolish in retrospect.

But this isn't really a criticism. 'Tess' is by far the greatest of Hardy's novels and the high point of his career as a novelist (Jude the Obscure would tip over into self parody) and is written with a rare passion - Hardy said that he loved Tess and, although he perhaps had a funny way of showing it, his depth of feeling for his creation really comes through. Like 'The Catcher in the Rye', if you're in the right demographic - a sixteen year old or someone who still feels like one - you're going to love it. If not, you may wonder what all the fuss is about and should perhaps move straight on to Dickens.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My first Thomas Hardy - result! I'm a convert, 17 Nov 2008

By	Annabel Gaskell "gaskella2" (Nr Oxford, UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Back in September on my blog I confessed that I had never read any Thomas Hardy. As this admission coincided with the recent BBC adaptation I chose Tess of the D'Urbervilles to read. I only watched the first two episodes on TV though, and can honestly say I didn't know the second half of the story at all.

Although the book is verbose and overlong, I couldn't deny it five stars because it made me cry a little, not once, but twice! The big theme is social injustice, with the pastoral idyll ever present in the Wessex background. Tess herself is innocence and vulnerability personified, (a friend of mine said she has 'victim' written all over her).

Without spending too long on the story's details, Tess's once-noble family is now impoverished and they have to work hard for a living. Tess meets and is unwillingly deflowered by a bad but rich 'cousin' Alec, then meets a good man, Angel and is allowed to be happy for a while - the scene where Angel carries the farm-girls across the ford was lovely. But it doesn't last and Angel rejects her when she tells him her shameful secret on their wedding night - I was reading this in bed with tears rolling down my cheeks. Angel leaves her to go to the Americas and Tess, too proud to ask his family for help, goes back to toiling on farms, where Alec finds her again and pursues her with a vengeance, leading to such a sad ending upon Angel's return that I cried again, not believing that it could end this way.

The Wessex countryside was beguiling, and the influence of the industrial revolution is just beginning to make some inroads with the railways in the distant towns, and inventions like the steam-powered threshing machine. For families such as the D'Urbeyfields, life is hard and mobility is limited; but when Tess throws away the opportunity of moving up the ladder by making Alec marry her, she reinforces the class divide from her side too.

Result! I'm definitely a Hardy convert.

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0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not as good as the BBC1 series!, 27 Jul 2009

By	FLB (England) - See all my reviews

I bought this after watching the new BBC1 series recently which I loved. I just didn't love the book as much! Usually the books are better, but this one just wasn't as emotive as the series.

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