This course will involve a close reading of Thomas Hardy’s two most popular novels, Far from the Madding Crowd and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Classes will consist almost entirely of discussion, though I will begin with a review of Hardy’s life. For each session, I will provide a set of questions which, I hope, will stimulate discussion of important issues in the week’s reading. But these are only that, stimulants, and the classes will actually be guided by participants’ interests, though I am never shy about including my own. Thomas Hardy was the last great English novelist of the 19th Century. In many ways he moved the novel into areas of coverage and forms that are what we would consider modern. He abandoned the happy ending and the popular plot that involved two nice young people discovering love, but not doing anything about it till they were married on the last page. He focused on a section of rural England he called Wessex, and described the local and rapidly disappearing way of living of his mainly working class characters. His people had largely lost a sustaining religion and lived in a world that was distinctly not arranged for their satisfaction. The two novels we will read come from the beginning and the end of Hardy’s career. The primary characters have contrasting lives, but share unconventionally admirable characters. This course will last eight weeks. We will spends four sessions on each novel, with reading assignments split as equally as possible.