First published in 1874, Far from the Madding Crowd was Thomas Hardy's first commerically successful novel. Set in the fictional Wessex countryside in the 1840s, it tells the story of the beautiful and capricious Bathsheba Everdene. Forced to choose between three suitors, Bathsheba makes a disastrous decision, which leads to both tragedy and true love.

Far from the Madding Crowd remains one of the most enduring English novels of our time, and one of Hardy's most popular.