This classic novel tells the story of how the poor rural couple John and Joan Durbeyfield become convinced that they are descended from the ancient family of d'Urbervilles. They encourage their innocent daughter Tess to cement a connection with the d'Urberville family, including their unprincipled son Alec, with tragic consequences. "A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented," as Hardy subtitled the novel, represented a direct challenge to conventional Victorian notions of sexuality and femininity. This is a revised, updated, and expanded Broadview edition that highlights a feminist interpretation of the novel in an extensive introduction. The range of historical appendices (including contemporary articles, letters, maps, news stories, and reviews) will greatly enhance a reader's understanding of the text.

An urgent, illuminating exploration of the social nature of shame and of how it might be used to promote large-scale political change and social reform. “[Jacquet] exposes the ways shame plays into collective ideas of punishment and reward, and the social mechanisms that dictate the ways we dictate our behavior.” —The Boston Globe Examining how we can retrofit the art of shaming for the age of social media, Jennifer Jacquet shows that we can challenge corporations and even governments to change policies and behaviors that are detrimental to the environment. Urgent and illuminating, Is Shame Necessary? offers an entirely new understanding of how shame, when applied in the right way and at the right time, has the capacity to keep us from failing our planet and, ultimately, from failing ourselves.

Jane Eyre, the story of a young girl and her passage into adulthood, was an immediate commercial success at the time of its original publication in 1847. Its representation of the underside of domestic life and the hypocrisy behind religious enthusiasm drew both praise and bitter criticism, while Charlotte Brontë’s striking exposé of poor living conditions for children in charity schools as well as her poignant portrayal of the limitations faced by women who worked as governesses sparked great controversy and social debate. Jane Eyre, Brontë’s best-known novel, remains an extraordinary coming-of-age narrative and one of the great classics of literature. The second edition has been updated throughout to reflect recent scholarship and includes new appendices on violence against women in Victorian fiction and madness and disability in the Victorian era.

The novel is set in impoverished rural Wessex during the Long Depression. Tess is the oldest child of John and Joan Durbeyfield, uneducated rural peasants; however, John is given the impression by Parson Tringham that he may have noble blood, since "Durbeyfield" is a corruption of "D'Urberville", the surname of a noble Norman family, now extinct. The news immediately goes to John's head. That same day, Tess participates in the village May Dance, where she meets Angel Clare, youngest son of Reverend James Clare, who is on a walking tour with his two brothers. He stops to join the dance, and partners several other girls. Angel notices Tess too late to dance with her, as he is already late for a promised meeting with his brothers. Tess feels slighted. Tess's father gets too drunk to drive to market that night, so Tess undertakes the journey herself. However, she falls asleep at the reins, and the family's only horse encounters a speeding wagon and is fatally wounded. The blood spreads over her white dress, a symbol of forthcoming events. Tess feels so guilty over the horse's death that she agrees, against her better judgement, to visit Mrs d'Urberville, a wealthy widow who lives in the nearby town of Trantridge, and "claim kin", unaware that in reality, Mrs d'Urberville's husband, Simon Stoke, purchased the baronial title and adopted the surname though unrelated to the real d'Urbervilles. Tess does not succeed in meeting Mrs. d'Urberville, but chances to meet her libertine son, Alec, who takes a fancy to Tess and secures her a position as poultry keeper on the estate. Tess dislikes Alec, but endures his persistent unwanted attention to earn enough to replace her family's horse. The threat that Alec presents to Tess's virtue is obscured for Tess by her inexperience and almost daily commonplace interactions with him. He calls her "coz" (cousin), indicating a male protector, but, late one night, walking home from town with some other Trantridge villagers, Tess inadvertently antagonises Car Darch, Alec's most recently discarded favourite, and finds herself in physical danger. When Alec rides up and offers to "rescue" her from the situation, she accepts. Instead of taking her home, he rides through the fog until they reach an ancient grove called "The Chase", where he informs her that he is lost and leaves on foot to get his bearings. Tess stays behind and falls asleep on a coat he lent her. Alec returns and rapes her. The rape is also alluded to in another chapter, with reference to the "sobbing [heard] in The Chase" during the season Tess was at Trantridge, and Alec is later referred to as "the seducer".

Introducing a comprehensive update and complete revision of the authoritative reference work from the award-winning daily paper, this one-volume reference book informs, educates, and clarifies answers to hundreds of topics.