Working-class Jude Fawley longs to be a scholar. But after scheming local girl Arabella Donn traps him in marriage, Jude finds his university dreams drifting away. When his wife abandons him, a window of opportunity opens, and Jude moves to Christminster to work as a stonemason - his eye still on his studies. Then he falls in love with the modern-minded Sue Bridehead, and his descent into scandal, tragedy, and ruin truly begins. Shunned by society and the church, the outcasts find themselves on the brink of despair.

Thomas Hardy's fearless exploration of love, marriage, religion, and the Victorian stranglehold on the poor incited such outrage that Hardy never wrote another novel. Jude the Obscure remains one of the most righteously angry and deeply radical works of the nineteenth century.

Revised edition: Previously published as Jude the Obscure, this edition of Jude the Obscure (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.