"She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation hated at tea parties feared in shops and loved at crises." From Far from the Madding Crowd

Far From the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy's fourth novel and first great literary success appeared originally as a monthly serial in the Cornhill Magazine in 1874. It tells the story of Gabriel Oak who lives an ordinary shepherd life on a farm of a woman he proposed to once without any positive outcome.

Far From the Madding Crowd rich in romance pathos and tragedy raising many questions about society morality religion the contrast between a good life and its rewards is a complicated love story visualizing how tiny little actions might cause huge consequences.

Thomas Hardy's prose increases the value of a mastery language and in this novel of his combining this talent with the concern of modernity in a rapidly industrializing society he with no doubt created one of the major novels of the English tradition.