Jude the Obscure

Self-taught young stonemason Jude Fawley yearns to attend the university of Christminster, but his dreams are thwarted when he is forced into an unhappy marriage. As the marriage collapses and Jude and his wife separate, he meets his free-spirited cousin Sue Bridehead with whom he immediately falls in love. Breaking with the conventions of the time, Jude and Sue choose to live together in poverty, shunned by friends and neighbours.
Often considered to be a novel ahead of its time, Jude the Obscure (1895) was Thomas Hardy's last completed full-length work and one of his most controversial. A fearless and piercing exploration of morality, society, and class, it has a deserved reputation as a true classic of Victorian fiction.