Thomas Hardy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully; The novel is set in an impoverished rural England, Thomas Hardy's fictional Wessex, during the Long Depression of the 1870s. Tess is the oldest child of John and Joan Durbeyfield, uneducated peasants. However, John is given the impression by Parson Tringham that he may have noble blood, as "Durbeyfield" is a corruption of "D'Urberville", the surname of an extinct noble Norman family. Knowledge of this immediately goes to John's head. That same day, Tess participates in the village May Dance, where she first sees Angel Clare, youngest son of Reverend James Clare. Angel is on a walking tour with his two brothers, but stops to join the dance and partners several other girls. He notices Tess too late to dance with her, as he is already late in returning to his brothers. Tess feels slighted. Tess's father gets too drunk to drive a load of beehives to a neighbouring town that night, and so Tess undertakes the journey herself with her younger brother. However, she falls asleep at the reins, and the family's only horse, Prince, encounters a speeding wagon and is fatally wounded. Tess feels so guilty over Prince's death and the economic consequences for the family that she agrees, against her better judgement, to visit Mrs. d'Urberville, a rich widow in a rural mansion near the town of Trantridge, and "claim kin". She is unaware that in reality, Mrs. d'Urberville's husband Simon Stoke adopted the surname, even though he was unrelated to the real d'Urbervilles.