Far From the Madding Crowd (Collins Classics), 480 pages

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. Here is one of Thomas Hardys most popular novels, soon to be released as a major motion picture in May 2015.

I shall do one thing in this life one thing certain that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die

Independent and spirited, Bathsheba Everdene owns the hearts of three men. Striving to win her love in different ways, their relationships with Bathsheba complicate her life in bucolic Wessex and cast shadows over their own. With the morals and expectations of rural society weighing heavily upon her, Bathsheba experiences the torture of unrequited love and betrayal, and discovers how random acts of chance and tragedy can dramatically alter lifes course.

The first of Hardys novels to become a major literary success, Far from the Madding Crowd explores what it means to live and to love.

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was one of the most significant novelists and poets of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His novels include ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’, ‘Tess of the d'Urbervilles’ and ‘Jude the Obscure’.