Tess of the D'Urbervilles Lesson Plan

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is the tragic tale of a young working class woman whose attempt to create a more stable life for her family financially, leads her to be raped, which changes the course of her life forever. It was published in the in the late Victorian Era of British History, and was initially met was mixed reviews due to its implicit criticism of the social, religious and sexual mores of the day. In various publications of the novel, Hardy was forced to censor certain scenes, but in most modern printings the text has been replace with the original. The novel takes place in the fictional region of Wessex, where Hardy set all of his major novels.