Far From the Madding Crowd

A woman inherits a farm and runs it herself, and three men want her: the shepherd who waits, the farmer who breaks, and the soldier who does not deserve her. Hardy published it serially and anonymously, and readers guessed George Eliot. It paid well enough that he gave up architecture for good and named his imaginary county Wessex for the first time here. Forty-seven plates of sheepfolds, dairymaids and pastoral landscape by painters including Frederick Sargent and William Shayer follow the flocks and fields of Hardy's Wessex.