Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) studied under an architect engaged in church restoration, then left Dorchester for London when he was twenty-two to pursue his profession. The idyllic rural life he left behind became inspiration for poetry that publishers rejected; so, while continuing his architecture career, he turned to the novel. Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) was such a success that he became a novelist full-time. While some of his novels were marketable commodities only, several are masterpieces to this day: Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Trumpet-Major (1880), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1896). Most of his novels tended toward the tragic, illustrating a deterministic philosophy; Tess alarmed the religious, and readers generally were revolted by the horrors of Jude. Hardy was dubbed an atheist by some of his critics and so discouraged by their rejection of these last works that he abandoned the novel and returned to verse. The pinnacle of his successful poetry late in life was his epic drama The Dynasts (1903–04,1906,1908), which embodied his concept of the Immanent Will. The 1914 war and its aftermath shook his agnosticism; in his “Apology” to Late Lyrics and Earlier, he called for an alliance of religion and science with poetry being the intermediary.

Stephen Thorne trained at RADA and played several seasons with the Old Vic Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford and London. He has worked extensively in radio, with over two thousand broadcasts for the BBC, including Uncle Mort in the Radio 4 comedy series and the part of Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings. His television work includes EastEnders, Boys from the Bush, Death of an Expert Witness, and David Copperfield.