Far from the Madding Crowd (CD)

Far From The Madding Crowd, perhaps the best-known and most humorous of Hardy's novels even though the familiar themes of suffering and betrayal are evident, is the product of Hardy's intimate and first-hand knowledge of the attributes, habits, inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies of rural men and women. The mainspring of the book is Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors. In portraying her caprice and willfulness gradually crushed by bitter self-knowledge and rejection, Hardy makes his point about sexual love.