The chance discovery by a young peasant woman that she is a descendant of the noble family of d’Urbervilles is to change the course of her life. Tess Durbeyfield leaves home on the first of her fateful journeys, and meets the ruthless Alec d’Urberville. Thomas Hardy’s impassioned story tells of hope and disappointment, rejection and enduring love.

In its expression of the cruel workings of history, sexuality and fate on its beautiful, tragic heroine, ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy’s novels.