Far From the Madding Crowd : An Introduction

[Marie]

I will do one thing in this life...

Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy's first masterpiece, received wide acclaim upon publication and remains among the author's best-loved works. The tale of a passionate, independent woman and her three suitors, it explores Hardy's trademark themes: thwarted love, the inevitability of fate, and the encroachment of industrial society on rural life.

Gabriel Oak is only one of three suitors for the hand of the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene. He must compete with the dashing young soldier Sergeant Troy and the respectable, middle-aged Farmer Boldwood. And while their fates depend upon the choice Bathsheba makes, she discovers the terrible consequences of an inconstant heart.

Far from the Madding Crowd was the first of Hardy's novels to give the name Wessex to the landscape of south-west England, and the first to gain him widespread popularity as a novelist. Set against the backdrop of the unchanging natural cycle of the year, the story both upholds and questions rural values with a startlingly modern sensibility

*from the Oxford University Press edition


Reading Schedule for the month of August :

August 1 : Chapters 1 - 13
August 8 : Chapters 14 - 27
August 15 : Chapters 28 - 41
August 22 : Chapters 42 - 55
August 29 : Chapters 56 - 62

For anyone who has been participating in our Age of Innocence reading, and those planning to read Far From the Madding Crowd, do you prefer the discussion points, or would you rather I only post a summary and allow people to converse naturally? Or a mixture of both?

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

Warning about Project Gutenberg edition:

At the beginning of the book, there is a warning to readers that the text has not been through their usual process. I shrugged my shoulders and thought " how bad can it be?" Well, the punctuation is a mess, particularly quotation marks for dialog, and the layout is weird. O_o

I didn't think I'd mind an imperfect eEdition, but I did. Then I checked out an eBook addition from public library/Overdrive--it had no chapter links for me to navigate to my place :O

[Marie]

Andrea (Catsos Person) is a Compulsive eBook Hoarder wrote: "Warning about Project Gutenberg edition:

At the beginning of the book, there is a warning to readers that the text has not been through their usual process. I shrugged my shoulders and thought " h..."

Thanks, Andrea. I've seen Project Gutenberg editions before, and they are generally a hot mess.

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

Up until now, I haven't had any problems with the Project Gutenberg editions I've read. I guess until now, I've been lucky.

[Marie]

Very lucky! I've only tried three, but the punctuation was terrible, they had wrong and missing words... I guess it just depends on who uploads or translates them.

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

It's a shame that there is no consistency with the texts in other instances.

[QNPoohBear]

there are 2 gutenberg versions. Choose the other one. The quotation spacing/font/footnotes are weird but the text is fine. I'm almost done reading it. The other one was terrible.