A brooding tragedy which scandalised Hardy's contemporaries on first publication. Jude's story -- his futile desire to better himself through education, his failed marriage and doomed love for the free-spirited Sue Bridehead -- shows with heartbreaking clarity the devastating effects of prejudice and oppression upon innocent minds, and forms a passionate plea for tolerance. It was met with widespread condemnation upon first publication in 1895 and, as a result, was the last novel Hardy ever wrote.