Far from the Madding Crowd

The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swiftpassion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships. Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning [Coralie Bickford-Smith](https://www.waterstones.com/author/coralie-bickford-smith/2396015), these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. **View other titles in [Penguin’s Clothbound Classics Collection](https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/clothbound+classics).** [Thomas Hardy](https://www.waterstones.com/author/thomas-hardy/27504) (1840-1928), born Higher Brockhampton, near Dorchester, originally trained as an architect before earning his living as a writer. Though he saw himself primarily as a poet, Hardy was the author of some of the late eighteenth century's major novels: *The Mayor of Casterbridge* (1886), *Tess of the D'Urbervilles* (1891), *Far from the Madding Crowd* (1874), and *Jude the Obscure* (1895). Amidst the controversy caused by *Jude the Obscure*, he turned to the poetry he had been writing all his life. In the next thirty years he published over nine hundred poems and his epic drama in verse, The Dynasts.