Far from the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
Away from the crazy crowd, it was Hardy's first novel to apply the name Wessex to the landscape of southwest England, and the first to give him a widespread reputation as a novelist. When the beautiful and energetic Bathsheba inherits her farm from Ever, she attracts three very different suitors; Gabrielle Oak, the banal man from the land, Frances Troy, the flamboyant young soldier, and Baldwood, the respected middle-aged farmer. His choices and the tragedy he provoked lie at the heart of Hardy's ambivalent story.
