Jude the Obscure

Front Cover
Perfection Learning Corporation, 1978 - Fiction - 428 pages
Thomas Hardy's deterministic art achieves fanatic intensity and raw perfection in the characterization of Jude Fawley, an impoverished stone mason who aspires to the ministry. Throughout his agonized existence, the cloistered halls and facades of Christminster -- where Jude wishes to study -- tempt and mock him to rid himself of ignorance. His failure to fulfill the expectations of either of the two women he loves, and the violent deaths of his children thwart him in his ideal and lead to his destruction. Concerned with the annihilation of innocence, Jude the Obscure is a scathing portrait of 19th-century British society.

About the author (1978)

Jay Parini was born in Pittston, Pennsylvania in 1948. In 1970 he graduated from Lafayette College and he received a doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in 1975. Before becoming a professor of Engliah and Creative Writing at Vermont's Middlebury College in 1982, Parini taught at Dartmouth College. Parini writes poetry, novels, biographies, and criticism, and he has published numerous reviews and essays in major journals and newspapers. He co-founded the New England Review in 1976. In 1995, he was appointed literary executor for author Gore Vidal. A film version of The Last Station, his 1990 novel, was released in 2009. Parini's novel, One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2015.

Bibliographic information

TitleJude the Obscure
Signet Classics Series
AuthorThomas Hardy
ContributorsA. Alvarez, Axinn Professor of English Jay Parini, Jay Parini
PublisherPerfection Learning Corporation, 1978
ISBN0812418816, 9780812418811
Length428 pages
Subjects › 

Fiction / Classics
Fiction / General
  
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