Jude The Obscure

"Jude Fawley's hopes of a university education are lost when he is trapped marrying the earthy Arabella, who later abandons him. Moving to the town of Christminster, where he finds work as a stonemason, Jude meets and falls in love with his cousin Sue Bridehead, a sensitive, freethinking 'New Woman'. Jude the Obscure is Hardy's last work of fiction and is also one of his most gloomily fatalistic, depicting the lives of individuals who are trapped by forces beyond their control. "