It is considered a major nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardy's fictional masterpiece.

It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper 'The Graphic' in 1891 and in book form in 1892.

Set in impoverished rural England, Thomas Hardy's fictional Wessex, during the Long Depression of the 1870s, the novel challenges the hypocrisy and social conventions of the rural Victorian world.

It follows the story of Tess Durbeyfield as she attempts to escape the poverty of her background, seeking wealth by claiming connection with the aristocratic D'Urberville family.

It is through Tess's relationships with two very different men that Hardy tells the story of his tragic heroine, and exposes the double standards of the world that she inhabits with searing pathos and heart-rending sentiment.