Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was an English novelist and
poet. Jude Fawley’s hopes of a university education are lost when he is trapped into marrying the earthy Arabella, who later abandons him. Moving to the town of Christminster where he fi nds work as a stonemason, Jude meets and falls in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead, a sensitive, freethinking ‘New Woman’. Refusing
to marry merely for the sake of religious convention, Jude and Sue decide instead to live together, but they are shunned by society
and poverty soon threatens to ruin them.