The Thomas Hardy Collection: Six Novels recap

Six Hardy novels trace lives shaped by rural society, desire, chance, and rigid convention. Bathsheba Everdene survives a disastrous marriage to Troy and Boldwood's violence before marrying the steadfast Gabriel Oak. Tess Durbeyfield is exploited by Alec, rejected and later reclaimed by Angel Clare, then executed after killing Alec. On Egdon Heath, Eustacia Vye and Wildeve drown during an attempted escape; Thomasin later marries Diggory Venn. Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead lose their children and separate under social and religious pressure; Jude dies after returning to Arabella. In The Woodlanders, Grace's marriage to the unfaithful Fitzpiers blocks her union with Giles, who dies after sacrificing his shelter to her. Finally, Michael Henchard rises to become mayor of Casterbridge, loses his position and loved ones through pride and rivalry with Donald Farfrae, and dies alone after withdrawing from Elizabeth-Jane's life.

In Far from the Madding Crowd, shepherd Gabriel Oak proposes to Bathsheba Everdene and is refused; she values her independence and does not love him. Gabriel then loses his flock and farm, while Bathsheba inherits her uncle's Weatherbury property. Their fortunes reversed, Gabriel takes work under her and saves her ricks from fire. Bathsheba insists on managing the farm herself. A playful valentine she sends to the reserved neighbouring farmer William Boldwood awakens his serious hopes of marriage. Gabriel warns her that the joke has consequences, but his honesty angers her. Meanwhile Fanny Robin, a former servant, misses her planned wedding to Sergeant Troy by going to the wrong church, and Troy rejects her pleas after the mistake.

Bathsheba meets Sergeant Troy, whose beauty, confidence, and swordsmanship overcome her caution. Though Gabriel distrusts him and Boldwood expects an answer to his proposal, Bathsheba marries Troy. He proves careless with the farm and gambling, and remains emotionally tied to Fanny. Pregnant and destitute, Fanny dies with her child; Bathsheba discovers the bodies and understands Troy's past. Troy grieves, declares Fanny more truly his wife, and disappears after swimming at the coast, leaving others to believe he drowned. Boldwood renews his courtship of the widowed Bathsheba. She feels indebted to him and considers a future promise, while Gabriel continues managing her affairs without pressing his own love.

Troy survived and joined a travelling performance before returning secretly to Weatherbury. At Boldwood's Christmas gathering, where Bathsheba is being pushed toward an eventual marriage, Troy appears and orders her to leave with him. Boldwood shoots Troy dead and then tries to kill himself; he is imprisoned and his death sentence is commuted. Bathsheba buries Troy beside Fanny. Gabriel, believing he has no future with Bathsheba, prepares to emigrate. His departure makes her recognize how fully she depends on and loves him. She asks him to stay, and they marry quietly. The first novel ends with a partnership founded on years of work, loyalty, and clearer knowledge rather than excitement or social pressure.

Far from the Madding Crowd ended with Bathsheba marrying Gabriel after Troy's death and Boldwood's imprisonment. Tess of the d'Urbervilles begins when John Durbeyfield learns of an aristocratic ancestry. After the family's horse dies, Tess accepts responsibility for seeking help from wealthy people who use the d'Urberville name. At Trantridge, Alec d'Urberville pursues her and places her in work among his family's poultry. His pressure culminates in a sexual encounter the narrative presents through Tess's vulnerability and Alec's power. Tess returns home, gives birth to a sickly child she names Sorrow, baptizes him herself, and buries him after his death. She later leaves home again to work as a dairymaid at Talbothays.

At Talbothays, Tess meets Angel Clare, who is learning dairy farming and rejects his clerical family's conventional path. They fall in love. Tess tries repeatedly to tell him about Alec, but circumstances and fear delay her confession. Angel idealizes her while asking her to overlook his own past. They marry. Tess finally tells him her history, expecting the forgiveness she gave him; Angel cannot reconcile the real woman with his ideal and separates from her, leaving for Brazil. Tess endures harsh field labour at Flintcomb-Ash and helps her family when she can. Alec, briefly converted by Angel's father, encounters Tess again. His religious purpose collapses into renewed pursuit, while Tess's letters begging Angel to return go unanswered for too long.

After Tess's father dies, her family loses its home. Alec uses their destitution and Angel's absence to draw Tess into living with him. Angel returns from Brazil physically changed and morally chastened, ready to accept her, but finds her with Alec. Tess blames Alec for making her lose Angel a second time and kills him. She flees with Angel, and they spend a brief secluded period together before police close in. At Stonehenge, Tess accepts that escape is over and asks Angel to care for her younger sister Liza-Lu. Tess is arrested, tried, and executed. Angel and Liza-Lu see the prison signal announcing her death and walk away together. The second novel ends with Tess destroyed by exploitation, social judgment, and help that arrived too late.

After Tess's execution, The Return of the Native turns to Egdon Heath. Thomasin Yeobright's marriage to Damon Wildeve fails because of a licence defect, and reddleman Diggory Venn brings her home. Wildeve remains attached to Eustacia Vye, who longs to escape the heath. Venn tries to protect Thomasin while Eustacia tests Wildeve's devotion. The expected return of Clym Yeobright from Paris gives Eustacia a new focus. She disguises herself as a mummer to see him and imagines that he can lead her abroad. Her withdrawal frees Wildeve to marry Thomasin. Clym, however, has returned intending to abandon commerce, stay on Egdon, and educate its residents.

Clym and Eustacia marry despite Mrs Yeobright's opposition, each expecting a different future. Clym's eyesight fails under study, and he takes work cutting furze; Eustacia sees this as the collapse of her hope of Paris. Wildeve inherits money and again becomes a possible means of escape. A gift Mrs Yeobright sends for Clym and Thomasin is gambled away by Christian Cantle, recovered by Venn, and mistakenly delivered entirely to Thomasin, worsening family suspicion. Mrs Yeobright later walks to Alderworth to reconcile. Clym sleeps while Wildeve visits Eustacia, and Eustacia does not answer the door. Mrs Yeobright turns away, is bitten by an adder, and dies believing her son rejected her.

Clym learns that Eustacia was present when his mother knocked and that Wildeve was visiting. Their marriage breaks, and Eustacia returns to her grandfather. She arranges for the newly wealthy Wildeve to help her leave Egdon. On the stormy night of their meeting, Eustacia falls or throws herself into Shadwater Weir. Wildeve and Clym enter the water; Venn saves Clym, but Eustacia and Wildeve die. Thomasin and her child inherit Wildeve's fortune. In the later aftermath, Venn becomes a dairy farmer and marries Thomasin. Clym, unable to restore his domestic life, becomes a travelling preacher. The third novel closes by contrasting Thomasin and Venn's practical happiness with the losses produced by Clym's and Eustacia's irreconcilable ideals.

The collection's first three novels have ended with Gabriel and Bathsheba married, Tess executed, and Eustacia and Wildeve drowned. Jude the Obscure follows Jude Fawley, a poor boy who teaches himself in hope of entering Christminster. His teacher Phillotson's departure inspires the ambition, but work and class keep formal study distant. Arabella Donn attracts Jude, claims pregnancy, and marries him; after revealing the claim was false, she leaves for Australia. Jude moves to Christminster as a stonemason and meets his cousin Sue Bridehead, whose intelligence and religious scepticism fascinate him. Sue enters training and then marries Phillotson, while Jude remains legally tied to Arabella. The cousins' attachment grows despite both marriages.

Sue recoils from marriage to Phillotson and leaves him for Jude. Phillotson allows the separation at great cost to his career and reputation. Arabella also reappears, and both marriages eventually end in divorce, but Jude and Sue resist formal remarriage. Their unmarried life together brings social suspicion and unstable work. They have children and take in Arabella's grave young son, called Little Father Time. Jude's scholarly dream has faded, though he and Sue try to form a principled family outside convention. Repeated moves and public hostility wear them down. Sue remains intellectually opposed to marriage, but anxiety and the practical burden of exclusion leave the household increasingly vulnerable.

Little Father Time hears Sue lament the family's poverty and kills the younger children before killing himself, leaving a message that treats their number as the problem. Sue's grief transforms into religious guilt. She decides that her life with Jude is sinful and returns to Phillotson, remarrying him despite her aversion. Jude, ill and despairing, is drawn back into marriage with Arabella. He visits Sue once more, but she submits to the separation she now sees as punishment. Jude returns to Christminster and dies in obscurity while festivities continue outside; Arabella is already considering another partner. The fourth novel ends with Jude's intellectual and emotional hopes defeated, Sue trapped by guilt, and the institutions around them largely unchanged.

After Jude's death, The Woodlanders begins in Little Hintock. Marty South makes spars to support her ill father and quietly loves Giles Winterborne. Giles expects to marry Grace Melbury, but Grace returns from school altered by the education her father purchased for her. George Melbury now doubts whether the woodsman is socially suitable. Young doctor Edred Fitzpiers appears to offer Grace the higher position her education was meant to secure. Legal changes and Mrs Charmond's control of local property weaken Giles's prospects. Grace is drawn toward Fitzpiers, and her father encourages the match, setting aside the old understanding with Giles despite Giles's deep knowledge of and belonging to the woodland community.

Grace marries Fitzpiers and discovers that refinement does not ensure fidelity. He becomes involved with Mrs Charmond, the wealthy estate owner, while Melbury bitterly regrets separating Grace from Giles. Grace leaves her husband and hopes to obtain a divorce, but the law offers no secure release. Giles continues to protect her without exploiting her distress. When Grace takes refuge near him during bad weather, Giles gives her his shelter and remains outside to preserve propriety. The exposure worsens his illness. Marty tends him and understands his sacrifice, while Grace's possibility of a future with him remains dependent on legal and social forces beyond their control.

Giles dies after surrendering his shelter to Grace. Mrs Charmond leaves England and is killed abroad, ending Fitzpiers's affair. With divorce unavailable and Giles gone, Grace is gradually reconciled to Fitzpiers, who promises reform, though the durability of that reform is uncertain. Melbury accepts the renewed marriage because no better social solution remains. Marty alone continues to honour Giles with undivided devotion, visiting his grave after the others have moved on. The fifth novel ends not with the union Grace and Giles once might have had, but with Grace returned to her unfaithful husband and Marty preserving the memory of the man whose value the community recognized too late.

The final novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge, begins when drunken hay-trusser Michael Henchard sells his wife Susan and their baby to sailor Richard Newson. Sobered, Henchard swears to avoid alcohol for twenty-one years. Nearly two decades later Susan, believing Newson dead, comes to Casterbridge with her daughter Elizabeth-Jane and discovers Henchard has become a wealthy corn merchant and mayor. Henchard plans to repair the past by remarrying Susan without exposing the sale. He also hires the capable young Scotsman Donald Farfrae, whose methods save damaged grain and improve the business. Farfrae's popularity and independence soon awaken Henchard's jealousy, even as Elizabeth-Jane becomes interested in him.

Henchard and Farfrae become business rivals, and Farfrae's judgment repeatedly outperforms Henchard's impulsive decisions. Susan dies after leaving a letter that reveals Elizabeth-Jane is Newson's daughter, not Henchard's surviving child; Henchard's tenderness toward the girl cools. Lucetta Templeman, once attached to Henchard, comes to Casterbridge but falls in love with Farfrae and secretly marries him. Henchard's speculative mistakes ruin him, while Farfrae acquires his business and later his civic position. Henchard's past letters to Lucetta become material for public ridicule. A skimmity-ride exposes the old affair, and the shock contributes to Lucetta's collapse and death. Henchard is left poor and dependent on the people he resented.

Newson arrives alive and asks for Elizabeth-Jane. Afraid of losing the daughter whose affection he has regained, Henchard lies that she is dead. The deception fails when Newson returns and learns the truth. Elizabeth-Jane, now preparing to marry Farfrae, rejects Henchard for keeping her from her father. Henchard leaves Casterbridge. He later approaches the wedding but, seeing Elizabeth-Jane happy and fearing another rebuff, withdraws without giving her his simple gift. When she regrets her severity and searches for him, she discovers that he has died alone. His written request asks for no funeral ceremony and no remembrance. Elizabeth-Jane returns to Farfrae with a chastened awareness that contentment is fragile, closing both Henchard's tragic rise and fall and the six-novel collection.

The collection closes with The Mayor of Casterbridge. Henchard's prosperity, office, and relationships have all collapsed as Farfrae rises. After lying that Newson cannot see Elizabeth-Jane because she is dead, Henchard is driven away when Newson discovers the truth. Henchard briefly returns for Elizabeth-Jane's wedding to Farfrae but leaves without presenting himself. She later seeks him and learns that he has died in obscurity. His will asks that no funeral attention or remembrance be given to him. Elizabeth-Jane regrets her last harshness and returns to her life with Farfrae carrying a more sober understanding of happiness. Across the six novels, Bathsheba and Gabriel and later Thomasin and Venn reach durable unions, while Tess, Eustacia, Jude, Sue's children, Giles, and Henchard bear the fatal consequences of desire, convention, chance, and belated recognition.