Larger	Tess of the D'Urbervilles Author: Thomas Hardy
	Book Information Publisher: Signet Classics Book Type: Paperback Rating: 18 ISBN-13: 9780451525468 - ISBN-10: 0451525469 Publication Date: 2/1/1964 Pages: 429

Because of its sexual frankness and indictment of Victorian hypocrisy, Hardy's novel was considered shocking when it was published in 1891. It is the tale of Tess Derbeyfield, a young country girl whose rape by Alec D'Urberville, a distant aristocratic relative, leads to pregnancy. Tess's baby dies, and she finds work as a dairymaid at a farm where no one knows her story. There she falls in love with and marries a young farmer named Angel Clare, but when Angel finds out about his wife's past, he is horrified, and deserts her. Tess meets Alec again -- now a reformed character who has become an itinerant preacher -- and lives with him as his wife. When Angel returns for her and finds her with Alec, he leaves her again -- and Tess, in despair, stabs Alec -- the cause of all her woes -- and kills him. She and Angel are reunited, but only briefly: Tess is taken into custody and will be tried for murder and hanged. The cynical and sophisticated Alec's seduction of a country girl, and the self-righteous Angel's destructive idealization of her, can be seen as symbols of the city's ruthless exploitation of the English countryside -- a common theme in Hardy's fiction.