Tess Of the D'Urbervilles

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, was first published as a censored and serialized version in the British illustrated newspaper, The Graphic in 1891. An intimate portrait of a woman, one of literature's most admirable and tragic heroines...Tess Durbeyfield knows what it is to work hard and expect little. But her life is about to veer from the path trod by her mother and grandmother. When her ne'er-do-well father learns that his family is the last of a long noble line, the d'Urbervilles, he sends Tess on a journey to meet her supposed kin—a journey that will see her victimized by lust, poverty, and hypocrisy. Shaped by an acute sense of social injustice and by a vision of human fate cosmic in scope, her story is a singular blending of harsh realism and poignant beauty. Thomas Hardy created in Tess not a standard Victorian heroine but a woman whose intense vitality shines against the bleak backdrop of a dying way of life. The novel shocked contemporary readers with its honesty and remains a timeless commentary on the human condition. -

First published in 1891 by James R Osgood, McIlvaine & Co, London, in three volumes. Publisher's original sand-colored cloth with vertical linear designs of honeysuckle blossom on the upper covers, gilt decorations and lettering designed by Charles Ricketts. 

The first American edition was published in January, 1892, and censored many events in the original British text that dealt with more mature themes. This text would later be restored in the second American edition.