Formerly a prize-winning architectural student, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) went on to become a prolific novelist and poet. Far From the Madding Crowd is the second of Hardy's great series of Wessex novels. The 'partly real, partly dream-country' of Wessex forms the compellingly beautiful and threatening background against which the struggles of passion so convincingly portrayed in Far From the Madding Crowd are illuminated.
Hardy's novels Under the Greenwood Tree, The Return of the Native, Two on a Tower, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure are also published in the Penguin English Library.

The Penguin English Library Edition of Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy 'I cannot allow any man to - to criticise my private conduct!' she exclaimed. 'Nor will I for a minute' Hardy's powerful novel of swift sexual passion and slow-burning loyalty centres on Bathsheba Everdene, a proud working woman whose life is complicated by three different men - respectable farmer Boldwood, seductive Sergeant Troy and devoted Gabriel - making her the object of scandal and betrayal. Vividly portraying the superstitions and traditions of a small rural community, Far from the Madding Crowd shows the precarious position of a woman in a man's world. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.