Tess of the d'Urbervilles cover

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Original en 149862 words First published 1891 United Kingdom

Hardy's tragedy of a country girl, subtitled 'A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented' — the subtitle alone was enough to scandalise 1891. Tess Durbeyfield is the daughter of a poor Wessex carter who learns that his family descends from the ancient d'Urbervilles; sent to claim kinship, she is seduced by the son of the family that bought the name. What follows is not one ruin but a long series of them, as Victorian England punishes in Tess what it forgives in the men who wrong her. Against the vast indifferent landscape of Wessex, Hardy builds his case that the universe, and society with it, is not just.

Text sourced from Project Gutenberg (public domain in the United States); the Project Gutenberg trademark and license text have been removed on import. Public-domain status determined by the author's death year + 50 years rule.

Table of Contents

  1. 001 Explanatory Note to the First Edition The main portion of the… 2533 words
  2. 002 “Boy, take up that basket! 2515 words
  3. 003 “What are you going to do, Angel?” asked the eldest. 2602 words
  4. 004 Returning along the garden path Tess mused on what the mother could… 2625 words
  5. 005 When they had passed the little town of Stourcastle, dumbly somnolent… 2605 words
  6. 006 As Tess grew older, and began to see how matters stood, she felt… 2521 words
  7. 007 “Well, I’m damned! What a funny thing! Ha-ha-ha! And what a crumby… 2501 words
  8. 008 Tess’s eyes were too full and her voice too choked to utter the… 2655 words
  9. 009 The rooms wherein dozens of infants had wailed at their nursing now… 2527 words
  10. 010 It was a windowless erection used for storage, and from the open door… 2568 words
  11. 011 XI The twain cantered along for some time without speech, Tess as she… 2592 words
  12. 012 “I shan’t come back,” said she. 2512 words
  13. 013 Her mother was subdued. “I thought if I spoke of his fond feelings… 2542 words
  14. 014 The movements of the other women were more or less similar to Tess’s… 2606 words
  15. 015 Poor Sorrow’s campaign against sin, the world, and the devil was… 2605 words
  16. 016 The bird’s-eye perspective before her was not so luxuriantly… 2595 words
  17. 017 “I wish singing on the stoop didn’t use up so much of a man’s wind! 2566 words
  18. 018 “I will do without Cambridge,” said Angel at last. 2533 words
  19. 019 Tess was conscious of neither time nor space. 2556 words
  20. 020 The gray half-tones of daybreak are not the gray half-tones of the… 2503 words
  21. 021 “We can’t all marry him,” said Izz. 2518 words
  22. 022 “Fie—it is Scripture, Izz!” “Yes,” said Izz, “I’ve always a’ ear at… 2508 words
  23. 023 The influence that had passed into Clare like an excitation from the sky did not die down. 2586 words
  24. 024 Angel sat down, and the place felt like home; yet he did not so much… 2520 words
  25. 025 He observed his own inconsistencies in dwelling upon accidents in… 2502 words
  26. 026 “If you will let it pass, please, Tessy, I will give you time,” he said. 2513 words
  27. 027 Her lover must have guessed her overwrought state, and invented some… 2549 words
  28. 028 “I ought not to have come, I suppose,” she murmured, looking at the sky. 2539 words
  29. 029 Thus steadied by a command from the only person in the world who had… 2509 words
  30. 030 Marian kissed Tess. “Yes,” she murmured as she withdrew her lips.… 2518 words
  31. 031 A natural incident relieved her anxiety. 2535 words
  32. 032 “Then you don’t wish me to, dearest?” “I do not, Tessy, really.” The… 2521 words
  33. 033 “That cock knew the weather was going to change,” said Clare. 2519 words
  34. 034 The man of upright life, from frailties free, Stands not in need of Moorish spear or bow. 2536 words
  35. 035 “Lots of families are as bad as mine in that! 2510 words
  36. 036 Tess tried to busy herself again over the breakfast-table with more… 2568 words
  37. 037 XXXVII Midnight came and passed silently, for there was nothing to… 2559 words
  38. 038 “How onnatural the brightness of her eyes did seem, and how they… 2565 words
  39. 039 XXXIX It was three weeks after the marriage that Clare found himself… 2539 words
  40. 040 She had learnt that he was about to leave England, and observed what… 2548 words
  41. 041 She could not bear to let them go. 2549 words
  42. 042 She reached Chalk-Newton, and breakfasted at an inn, where several… 2541 words
  43. 043 “You can see a gleam of a hill within a few miles o’ Froom Valley… 2566 words
  44. 044 “I knew you wouldn’t be able to stand it!” cried Marian. 2534 words
  45. 045 The Emminster congregation looked at her as only a congregation of… 2514 words
  46. 046 As soon as she could reflect, it appalled her, this change in their relative platforms. 2664 words
  47. 047 “He is Amby Seedling, the chap who used to sometimes come and help at… 2509 words
  48. 048 Tess jumped up, but her visitor had knocked at the door, and she… 2626 words
  49. 049 For some probably economical reason it was usually a woman who was… 2561 words
  50. 050 A panting ache ran through the rick. 2515 words
  51. 051 They blamed themselves for this unlucky marriage. 2529 words
  52. 052 At Nuttlebury she passed the village inn, whose sign creaked in… 2528 words
  53. 053 However, all the mutations so increasingly discernible in village… 2611 words
  54. 054 But to Tess and her mother’s household no such anxious farmer sent his team. 2546 words
  55. 055 End of Phase the Sixth Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment LIII It was… 2533 words
  56. 056 His way was by the field in which he had first beheld her at the dance. 2528 words
  57. 057 She accordingly ascended the stairs softly, and stood at the door of… 2577 words
  58. 058 “Are we going anywhere in particular?” “I don’t know, dearest. 2528 words
  59. 059 “What can it be?” Feeling sideways they encountered another… 1979 words