Reading Order
Far from the Madding Crowd Reading Order
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) by Thomas Hardy is his first major success and the novel that established Wessex as his literary territory — a pastoral romance set in the fictional county of Dorset that Hardy would return to throughout his career. Bathsheba Everdene is an independent young farmer who inherits her uncle's land and manages it herself, attracting three suitors: Gabriel Oak (the steady shepherd who loves her from the beginning and whom she will eventually marry), Sergeant Troy (the dashing soldier whose physical beauty overwhelms her judgment and whom she marries disastrously), and William Boldwood (the prosperous farmer who becomes obsessed with her after she sends him a Valentine and who shoots Troy when he returns). The novel takes its title from Gray's Elegy — Hardy's Dorset shepherds and farmers are the madding crowd's ignoble strife, and the novel is an investigation of whether pastoral life can survive the intrusion of the modern world (in the form of Troy, who is essentially an urban type, a man without roots).
Where to start
Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) — the complete novel, first in the Wessex sequence. Best Hardy reading order: Far from the Madding Crowd → The Return of the Native → The Mayor of Casterbridge → Tess of the D'Urbervilles → Jude the Obscure.
Complete Far from the Madding Crowd Book List
- 1Buy
Far from the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy·1874·The complete novel — Bathsheba Everdene, Gabriel Oak, Sergeant Troy, and William Boldwood. Hardy's first major success and the best introduction to his Wessex world; the Oxford World's Classics edition with notes by Suzanne Falck-Yi is widely used - 2Buy
The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy·1878·The companion — Eustacia Vye and Clym Yeobright on Egdon Heath. The companion as the more complex and darker investigation of the same Dorset world: where Far from the Madding Crowd is a pastoral romance that allows a happy ending, The Return of the Native is the tragic investigation of the same world — the woman who wants more than the rural world can give, and is destroyed by the wanting - 3Buy
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy·1891·The companion — Tess's tragedy. The companion as the fullest and darkest statement of the same theme: the beautiful country girl destroyed by the intrusion of the modern world (in the form of Alec D'Urberville and Angel Clare) into the pastoral world in which she could have been happy - 4Buy
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Thomas Hardy·1886·The companion — Michael Henchard's self-destruction. The companion investigation of the same Dorset world in its tragic mode: where Far from the Madding Crowd is organized around a woman's self-determination, The Mayor of Casterbridge is organized around a man's self-destruction through exactly the kind of willfulness that Bathsheba Everdene eventually learns to temper - 5Buy
Adam Bede
George Eliot·1859·Eliot's companion pastoral — Adam, Hetty, and Dinah in the English Midlands. The companion as the Victorian predecessor of the same form: both novels are set in a specifically realized English agricultural world, both are organized around a beautiful young woman and the men who love her, and both investigate the intrusion of sexual passion and social mobility into a community that would otherwise be stable - 6Buy
The Woodlanders
Thomas Hardy·1887·Hardy's companion — Giles Winterborne and Grace Melbury in the Dorset woods. The companion as the quieter and more melancholy investigation of the same world: where Far from the Madding Crowd allows a pastoral resolution, The Woodlanders does not — Giles Winterborne dies, and Grace Melbury returns to her husband - 7Buy
Jude the Obscure
Thomas Hardy·1895·Hardy's companion final novel — Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead. The companion as the most radical and most modern statement of the same investigation: Jude and Sue are the Hardy characters who most fully understand the social forces that destroy them, and who are destroyed anyway - 8Buy
Middlemarch
George Eliot·1871·Eliot's companion masterpiece — Dorothea Brooke and Lydgate. The companion as the companion investigation of the same central question (what becomes of an intelligent, self-willed woman who wants more than her provincial world offers?) but organized through the social and intellectual world of a Midlands town rather than the agricultural world of Dorset
Far from the Madding Crowd — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Far from the Madding Crowd about?
Far from the Madding Crowd is about Bathsheba Everdene, an independent young woman who inherits her uncle's farm in Dorset and manages it herself — an unusual situation for a woman in 1870s England. Bathsheba attracts three suitors: Gabriel Oak, a steady and devoted shepherd who loves her honestly but whom she initially rejects; Sergeant Troy, a dashing soldier whose physical beauty overwhelms her judgment and whom she marries; and William Boldwood, a prosperous bachelor farmer who becomes obsessively fixated on her after she sends him an impulsive Valentine. The novel is organized around the consequences of Bathsheba's choices — her rejection of Oak's steadiness, her marriage to the irresponsible Troy, the catastrophe that results from Boldwood's obsession — and eventually leads her to the recognition that Gabriel Oak's honest, patient, and practical love was always the right choice.
What does 'Far from the Madding Crowd' mean?
The title comes from Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' (1751): 'Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, / Their sober wishes never learned to stray.' Hardy uses the phrase to locate his novel in the pastoral tradition of English literature — his Dorset shepherds and farmers are the people who live far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, and his novel is partly an investigation of what happens when the crowd's strife (embodied by the worldly Sergeant Troy) intrudes into their pastoral world. 'Madding' is an archaic word meaning 'frenzied' or 'maddening' — the madding crowd is the frenzied world of commerce, ambition, and social competition. Hardy's title is both an homage to the pastoral tradition and an ironic acknowledgment that his characters are not, in fact, protected from the forces that the pastoral tradition was meant to exclude.
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