Hardy's last novel, Jude the Obscure, is one of the greatest works of late Victorian literature; but it is also something more than that. With courage and sensitivity, Hardy explores some of the most significant social issues of his time--and not only of his time. The intensity of his response to the questions debated and dramatized in the novel derives from their importance being at the same time public and personal.

Set against the backdrop of Victorian Oxford (the Christminster of the novel), lude the Obscure tells a haunting, tragic, and unforgettable story. This Norton Critical Edition again reprints Hardy's final revision for the 1912 Wessex Edition, which includes his Preface and Postscript. The text is accompanied by explanatory annotations and two maps.

"Backgrounds and Contexts" includes relevant materials on Jude the Obscure's composition and publication history, generous selections from Hardy's nonfiction writings and poetry that help contextualize the novel, and background materials on the novel's setting.

"Criticism" includes six contemporary and ten modern essays on the novel. To this Second Edition have been added a number of recent essays reflecting current developments in critical approach.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Preface to the First Edition

Preface to the Second Edition

The Text of Jude the Obscure

 A Map of the Wessex of the Novels (1895)

 Contents of Jude the Obscure

Preface to the First Edition (1895)

Postscript (1912)

Jude the Obscure

Backgrounds and Contexts

  COMPOSITION, PUBLICATION, AND TEXT

Richard Little Purdy [Composition and Serialization

    of the Novel]

John Paterson [ttardy's Change of Direction]

Robert C. Slack [Hardy's Revisions]

  HARDY'S NONFICTIONAL WRITINGS

From Hardy's Autobiography

Comments from Hardy's Letters

The Tree of Knowledge

The Profitable Reading of Fiction

  HARDY'S POEMS

Childhood Among the Ferns

A Necessitarian's Epitaph

The Masked Face

Thoughts of Phena

The Son's Portrait

Lausanne

The Young Glass-Stainer

The Conformers

The Recalcitrants

To a Motherless Child

Midnight on the Great Western

To a Lady

  LOCALE

Norman Page Settings and Sources

Map: Valters' Plan of Oxford (1891)

  INFLUENCES ON THE NOVEl,

C. ]. Weber [Autobiographical Elements]

W. R. Rutland [Hardy, Parnell, and Ibsen]

Criticism

  CONTEMPORARY RECEPTION

William Dean Howetls - From Harper's Weekly

    (December 7, 1895)

Margaret Oliphant. From Blackwood's Magazine (January 1896)

Edmund Gosse From Cosmopolis (January 1896)

D. F. Hannigan. From the Westminster Review (January 1896)

W. W. How, Bishop of Wakefield Letter to the Yorkshire Post

    (June 9, 1896)

Havelock Ellis. From the Savoy Magazine (October 1896)

  MODERN CRITICISM

Irving Howe- ['A Distinctively Modern Novel[

Arthur Mizener · Jude the Obscure as a Tragedy

D. H. Lawrence. [Male and Female]

Albert J. Guerard · [Hardy's Portrait of Sue Bridehead]

Robert Gittings · [Sue as a Girl of the 186os]

Frederick P. W. McDowell · [Imagery and Symbolism in

    Jude the Obscure]

Penny Boumelha · [A Double Tragedy]

F. B. Pinion [Jude the Obscure as Autobiography]

Richard Dellamora · [Sexually' and Scandal]

Marjorie Garson · [Jude's Idealism]

Thomas Hardy: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography