From the Bookshelf of Classics Without All the Class…

[close] Tess of the d’Urbervilles and other novels, Hardy demonstrates his deep sense of moral sympathy for England’s lower classes, particularly for rural women. He became famous for his compassionate, often controversial portrayal of young women victimized by the self-righteous rigidity of English social morality. Perhaps his most famous depiction of such a young woman is in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. This novel and the one that followed it, Jude the Obscure (1895), engendered widespread public scandal with their comparatively frank look at the sexual hypocrisy of English society. (Taken from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/tess/co...)