Far from the Madding Crowd (The Heritage Press)

xx, [4], 399 pp. Decorative cloth. Introduction by Robert Cantwell, engravings by Agnes Miller Parker. The fourth novel by the British author of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. Gabriel Oak is a young shepherd. With the savings of a frugal life, and a loan, he has leased and stocked a sheep-farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst. She comes to like him well enough, and even saves his life once, but when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much and him too little. Gabriel's blunt protestations only serve to drive her to haughtiness. After a few months, she moves to Weatherbury, a village some miles off.