Far from the Madding Crowd

The novel that started the Wessex bandwagon... 

A concept so successful he retrofitted it to such works as "Under the Greenwood Tree". 


Puddletown church with "gurgoyles" 

The story in essence:  Gabriel Oak is a strong, quiet shepherd who plays the flute.  He's quite enamoured with Bathsheba Everdene. She's a bit above his station, and more so after his dog drives all his sheep off a cliff and he ends up broke.  

Bathsheba inherits a farm and decides to manage it in her own right.  Like all central female characters in Hardy she has a number of men after her: Gabriel (boring but trustworthy); Farmer Boldwood (old but implausibly romantic); Sergeant Troy (the inevitable dashing cad).  She marries Troy.  But of course  Troy is a love rat, having left poor Fanny Robin (his girlfriend) to follow him around the barracks.  Fanny is of course pregnant and dies tragically, in childbirth, in Casterbridge workhouse.  Troy goes a bit mad as a consequence and much business results with a "gurgoyle". 

Troy is missing, presumed drowned, turns up as a circus act (honest); Boldwood thinks he's going to marry Bathsheba, Troy spoils the party but Boldwood shoots him.  Boldwood is found guilty but declared insane, so just gets banged up for life instead of swinging from Casterbridge gallows.  

Gabriel and Bathsheba..... but that's spoiling the ending. 

The novel the Victorian public just wanted Hardy to keep writing.  Complete with burning hayricks, exploding sheep and more rustics than you can throw a smock at.  The rustics, as general in the earlier Hardy novels, are a terrific part of the plot - not just a sort of Greek chorus on the outside. Joseph Poorgrass and his "multiplying eye" are worth the entrance fee alone.  

The character's name - "Gabriel Oak".  Well, Oak's a strong kind of tree - kind of Hardy, if you know what I mean.....  

Farmer Boldwood also crops up in The Mayor of Casterbridge, as a much younger man.  Curiously, so does Bathsheba's name - her uncle's stall features at the Casterbridge Cornmarket (and so does Mr Shiner from Under the Greenwood Tree for the same reason).

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