Tess of the d'Urbervilles Contents
- Social / political context
- Religious / philosophical context
- Chapters 1-9
- Chapters 10-19
- Chapters 20-29
- Chapters 30-39
- Chapters 40-49
- Chapters 50-59
- Tess as a 'Pure Woman'
- Tess as a secular pilgrim
- Tess as a victim
- The world of women
- Tess as an outsider
- Coincidence, destiny and fate
- Disempowerment of the working class
- Heredity and inheritance
- Laws of nature vs. laws of society
- Modernity
- Nature as sympathetic or indifferent
- Patterns of the past
- Sexual predation
- Inner conflicts: body against soul
Tess of the d'Urbervilles Timeline
| Year | Historical | Literary | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1837 |
Death of William IV and accession of Queen Victoria Brunel, Great Western Railway |
Carlyle's The French Revolution Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits |
|
| 1838 |
Anti-Corn Law League founded Chartist petitions published London to Birmingham railway opens People's Charter issued |
Letitia Landon dies, Gold Coast | |
| 1839 | First Factory Inspector's report |
Carlyle's Chartism Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle Ellis' The Women of England:Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits |
|
| 1840 |
Penny post begins Queen Victoria marries her cousin Albert, who becomes Prince Consort. |
Thomas Hardy born on 2 June | |
| 1841 |
The Tories come to power. Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister Punch begins |
||
| 1842 |
Jowett becomes tutor at Balliol College, Oxford Chartist riots. Report on Sanitary Conditions of Labouring Population Mudie's Lending Library opens Illustrated London News begins |
||
| 1843 | Theatre Regulation Act |
Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present Ruskin's Modern Painters (vol. 1) |
|
| 1844 |
Co-operative Society founded in Rochdale Factory Act (women and children) Expansion of railways across Britain |
Disraeli's Coningsby, or The New Generation published | |
| 1845 |
John Henry Newman converts to Catholicism Financial speculation in Railways Onset of the Irish potato famine The first Anglican sisterhood, Park Village, is founded in the Christ Church parish |
Disraeli's Sybil, or The Two Nations published E. A. Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination |
|
| 1846 |
Repeal of Corn Laws Famine in Ireland Whigs come to Power |
||
| 1847 |
Railway reaches Dorchester Ten Hours' Factory Act |
Disraeli's Tancred | |
| 1848 |
Chartist demonstrations in London following by the collapse of the Chartist movement Democratic Revolutions in Europe. Cholera epidemic Public Health Act Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded |
Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto Newman's Loss and Gain |
Thomas Hardy attends village school |
| 1849 | Bedford College for Women founded | Charles Kingsley's Alton Locke | |
| 1850 |
Roman Catholic hierarchy established Public Libraries Act |
Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter |
Thomas Hardy attends school in Dorchester |
| 1851 |
Great Exhibition in London Taylor Mill's The Enfranchisement of Women |
Ruskin's Stones of Venice Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe |
|
| 1853 |
Cholera epidemic Crimean War |
Yonge's Heir of Redclyffe | |
| 1854 | Onset of Crimean War | ||
| 1855 |
Daily Telegraph Repeal of stamp duty on newspapers |
Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South | |
| 1856 | Crimean War ends | Dickens, Little Dorrit | Thomas Hardy apprenticed to architect in Dorchester |
| 1857 |
Railway extended to Weymouth Indian Mutiny Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act |
Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary Hughes' Tom Brown's School days Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh |
|
| 1858 |
Ballantyne's Coral Island English Woman's Journal begins George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life |
||
| 1859 |
Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species published Rise of movement for Home Rule in Ireland |
Smiles' Self Help published Mill's On Liberty |
|
| 1860 | Cornhill Magazine begins | ||
| 1861 |
Death of Prince Consort American Civil War begins |
Dickens, Great Expectations Beeton's Book of Household Management Wood's East Lynne |
|
| 1862 | Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret | Hardy draughtsman in London | |
| 1863 | The Oxford Declaration published | Kingsley's The Water Babies | |
| 1864 | John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua | ||
| 1865 |
American Civil War ends Women's Suffrage Campaign Transatlantic cable laid Joseph Lister establishes antiseptic surgery Completion of St. Pancras' railway station Slavery is abolished in the USA |
Matthew Arnold's Essays in Criticism | |
| 1866 |
Cholera epidemic Former slaves granted citizenship and equal rights in America Ku Klux Klan founded |
Swinburne's Poems and Ballads (dedicated to Rossetti) published | |
| 1867 |
Second Reform Act Fenian Rising in Ireland |
Marx's Das Kapital published George Eliot's Felix Holt, the Radical |
Hardy returns to Dorchester as architect |
| 1868 | Gladstone becomes Prime Minister | Hardy's 1st novel, The Poor Man & the Lady, not published | |
| 1869 |
Opening of Suez Canal Mill's The Subjection of Women |
Arnold's Culture and Anarchy Blackmore's Lorna Doone |
|
| 1870 |
Education Act: free education in new board schools First Married Women's Property Act |
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poems | Hardy meets Emma Gifford in St.Juliot's, north Cornwall |
| 1871 |
Trade Union Act Darwin's The Descent of Man |
Hardy's Desperate Remedies published | |
| 1872 | MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin | Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree well received | |
| 1873 |
Mill's Autobiography Pater's Studies in the Renaissance |
Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes serialised and published | |
| 1874 |
Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd published Hardy marries Emma Gifford and moves back to London |
||
| 1875 | Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial by Jury | Hardy living in Swanage, Dorset | |
| 1876 |
Invention of telephone by Alexander Graham Bell Queen Victorian proclaimed Empress of India |
Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta published, Hardy settles at Sturminster Newton, Dorset | |
| 1878 |
Gramophones first produced by Thomas Edison Newman made Cardinal Revolutions in Europe |
Hardy's Return of the Native published Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore |
Hardy's Return of the Native published. Hardy living in London again |
| 1879 | Electric lightbulb invented | George Meredith's The Egoist published | |
| 1880 | (-1881) First Boer War, also known as the Transvaal War | Hardy's The Trumpet Major is published | Hardy's The Trumpet Major is published. Hardy meets Browning, Tennyson |
| 1881 | First Anglo-Boer War |
Hardy's A Laodicean published Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ballads and Sonnets Uncle Remus series, J C Harris |
Hardy's A Laodicean published. Hardy returns to Dorset. |
| 1882 |
First commercial production of electricity Married Women's Property Act, enables women to buy, own and sell property and to keep their own earnings |
Hardy's Two on a Tower published | |
| 1883 | Fabian Society founded |
Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathrustra |
|
| 1884 |
Ruskin's Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth-Century Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain |
Hardy's 'Max Gate' being built | |
| 1885 | Haggard's King Solomon's Mines | Hardy's move into 'Max Gate' | |
| 1886 | Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge published. Hardy continues to meet literary figures in London | ||
| 1887 | Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebrating 50 years of her reign | Haggard's Allan Quartermain | Hardy's The Woodlanders published |
| 1888 |
Jack the Ripper murders five women in London Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society |
Arnold's Essays in Criticism (Second Series) | Hardy's Wessex Tales published |
| 1889 | Newman dies | Death of Gerard Manley Hopkins | |
| 1890 |
First underground railway in London Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough (first two vols; complete 13 vols., -1915) First of the Jim Crow laws passed to segregate blacks from whites in the South Southern states pass series of laws to restrict black voting rights |
William Morris' News from Nowhere Emily Dickinson, Poems |
Hardy's Tess of the d'Ubervilles serialised |
| 1891 | William Morris, Kelmscott Press | Gissing's New Grub Street | Hardy's Tess of the d'Ubervilles published |
| 1892 | Daimlers sell their first motor car | Hostile reviews to Hardy's Tess of the d'Ubervilles. Hardy's father dies. Relationship with Emma increasingly difficult | |
| 1893 | Independent Labour Party formed | Hardy forms close friendship with society hostess Florence Henniker | |
| 1895 | Oscar Wilde arrested and imprisoned for homosexuality | Hardy's Jude the Obscure published. Hardy working on uniform edition of his works | |
| 1896 | Hardy's Jude the Obscure severely criticised. Revises other novels, especially The Well-Beloved | ||
| 1897 | Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee | Hardy's first uniform edition published, but gives up novel-writing | |
| 1898 | Hardy's Wessex Poems and Other Verses published | ||
| 1899 |
( - 1902) Second Boer War Irish Literary Theatre founded |
Ibsen's When We Dead Awaken Pinero's Trelawney of the 'Wells' Symons' The Symbolist Movement in literature Wells' Tales of Space and Time |
|
| 1900 |
Most children under eleven attending elementary school Daily Express founded Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams |
||
| 1901 |
Queen Victoria dies. Edward VII king First transatlantic radio communication by Marconi |
Wells' The First Men in the Moon |
Hardy's Poems of the Past and Present published Hardy's Poems of the Past and Present |
| 1902 |
Balfour Education Act establishes state system of secondary schools Second Boer War ends |
Bennett's Anna of the Five towns Mare's Songs of Childhood Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles Kipling's Just So Stories |
Macmillans become Thomas Hardy's publisher |
| 1903 |
Wilbur and Orville Wright make first powered flight New York-London news service begins using wireless telegraphy Emmeline Pankhurst founds the Women's Social and Political Union |
Butler's The Way of All Flesh James' The Ambassadors The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. du Bois |
|
| 1904 |
Entente Cordiale settles colonial differences between UK and France Offset printing invented Abbey Theatre, Dublin, founded Freud's The Psychopathology of Everyday Life |
Hardy's The Dynasts, Part I published J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan first performed on stage James' The Golden Bowl |
Hardy's The Dynasts, Part I published. Hardy's mother dies |
| 1905 |
Start of suffragette agitation and first suffragettes imprisoned Einstein's special theory of relativity Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality |
Doyle's The Return of Sherlock Holmes Wells' Kipps |
Florence Dugdale, 26, becomes Thomas Hardy's secretary |
| 1906 | Liberal landslide in general election; 29 Labour MPs elected and Labour Party constituted | Mare's Poems | Hardy's The Dynasts, Part 2 published |
| 1907 | Pablo Picasso introduces cubism | ||
| 1908 |
Old Age Pensions Act introduces state pensions for the over-seventies Ford's first Model T car sold in Britain Pathe's first regular newsreel First aeroplane flight in Britain |
Edmund Gosse's Father & Son published Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale Wells' The War in the Air |
Hardy's The Dynasts, Part 3 published |
| 1909 |
North Pole reached by Robert Peary (US) NAACP founded |
Galsworthy's Strife Pound's Personae |
Hardy's Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses published |
| 1910 |
Edward VII dies. George V becomes king South Wales Miners' strike First post-impressionist exhibition in London First feature-length films Freud's On Psychoanalysis Collapse of cotton farming due to boll weevil damage |
Galsworthy's Justice Wells' The History of Mr Polly |
Thomas Hardy awarded Order of Merit |
| 1911 |
Ford Model T assembly plant opened in Manchester Beatrice and Webb's Poverty Der Blaue Reiter group of expressionist artists formed in Munich Frazer's The Golden Bough (11 vols.-1915; first two vols., 1890) Roald Amundsen reaches South Pole Suffragette riots in London |
Wells' The New Machiavelli | |
| 1912 |
First Post-Impressionism Exhibition in London Titanic sinks Widespread strikes in Britain Women's Franchise Bill rejected by the House of Commons; suffragettes riot in London Some 400 cinemas in London; establishment of British Board of Film Censors |
Bridges' Poetical Works Mare's The Listeners Georgian Poetry, ed. Edward Marsh Pound's Ripostes Mann's Death in Venice |
Hardy's 24 volume Wessex Edition published. Hardy's wife Emma dies 27 November |
| 1913 |
Suffragette Emily Davies dies after throwing herself under the King's horse at the Derby Freud's Totem and Taboo; also Interpretation of Dreams Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring 'Cat and Mouse' Act House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule Bill but rejected by the House of Lords Suffragette deonstrations |
Marcel Proust publishes first of the seven volumes of A la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past) (last volume, 1927) | Thomas Hardy receives Litt.D. from Cambridge University. Revisits Cornwall |
| 1914 |
August: Great War breaks out (to November 1918) Irish Home Rule Act passed but later suspended because of war World War One - although segregated, black soldiers enlisted to fight in US armed forces |
Pound's Des Imagistes |
Hardy's Satires of Circumstance published. Hardy marries Florence Dugdale Hardy's Satires of Circumstance |
| 1915 |
War intensifies with huge losses Zeppelin attacks on London Sinking of Lusitania Einstein's general theory of relativity Second Battle of Ypres |
Brooke's 1914 and Other Poems Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps Kafka's Metamorphosis Maugham's Of Human Bondage Some's Imagist Poets: An Anthology, ed. Amy Lowell (further Imagist anthologies followed in 1916 and 1917) Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier |
Hardy's sister Mary dies |
| 1916 |
Easter Rising, Dublin Conscription introduced Battle of the Somme Theories of shell-shock develop Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious Battle of Verdun Lloyd George becomes Prime Minister The Great Migration to the north begins (US) |
Brighouse's Hobson's Choice Wells' Mr Britling Sees it Through |
Hardy's Selected Poems published |
| 1917 |
USA enters war Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) Russian Revolution (March) Freud's Introduction to Psychoanalysis Abdication of Czar Nicholas II Russian Revolution (October) |
Hardy's Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous published | |
| 1918 |
End of the Great War: Armistice, 11 November Rutherford splits atom Representation of the People Act (4th Reform Bill) gives the vote to all men over twenty-one and women over thirty Stopes' Married Love; Parenthood Fisher Education Act raises school-leaving age to fourteen Influenza pandemic, kills over 20 million people world-wide by 1920 Execution of Czar Nicholas II Vote given to all men over twenty-one and women over thirty |
Joyce's Exiles Thomas' Last Poems |
|
| 1919 |
Treaty of Versailles Anglo-Irish War begins Nancy Astor becomes first woman MP Flu pandemic Peace conference at Versailles |
Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence | Hardy's Mellstock Edition published in 37 volumes. Hardy meets Siegfried Sassoon |
| 1920 |
Partition of Ireland League of Nations founded (precursor of the United Nations) Oxford admits women to degrees (1880 at London University) Jung's Psychological Types |
Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles Mansfield's Bliss Strachey's Eminent Victorians Hardy's Collected Poems |
Hardy receives D.Litt. from Oxford University. Meets Robert Graves |
| 1921 |
Economic slump Marie Stopes opens first birth-control clinic in London Irish Free State formed |
Huxley's Crome Yellow Pirandello Six Characters in Search of an Author |
|
| 1922 |
Unemployment stands at 2 million: first of many 'hunger marches' organised by the NUWM throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Irish Civil War breaks out (ends 1923) Mussolini comes to power in Italy Radio broadcasting begins; British Broadcasting Company formed Frazer's The Golden Bough (one-volume abridged edn) Establishment of the USSR |
Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga Mansfield's The Garden Party Richards' Principles of Literary Criticism |
Hardy's Late Lyrics and Earlier published |
| 1923 | Matrimonial Causes Act (allows women to sue for divorce on same grounds as men, including adultery) |
Sitwell's Façade published Cummings' Tulips and Chimneys Huxley's Antic Hay Cane, Jean Toomer (Harlem Renaissance author) |
Hardy is visited by the Prince of Wales |
| 1924 |
Paris Exhibition First Labour government in Britain under Ramsay MacDonald (January) Housing Act provides for subsidised public housing (generates over half a million new homes by 1932) Freud's The Ego and the Id Ramsay Macdonald forms first Labour government |
Hardy's Tess of the d'Ubervilles dramatised and performed in Dorchester | |
| 1925 | Pensions Act provides pensions at sixty-five |
Coward's Hay Fever Hemingway's In Our Time |
Hardy's Human Shows published |
| 1926 |
General Strike Television first demonstrated by John Logie Baird; British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) established |
T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom | Hardy's Mayor of Castorbridge dramatised and performed in Weymouth |
| 1927 |
Trade Disputes Act makes general strikes illegal Charles Lindbergh, first solo transatlantic flight German financial and economic crisis Rise of Stalin in USSR |
Graves and Riding's A Survey of Modernist Poetry | |
| 1928 |
Universal suffrage for men and women Minimum voting age for women in Britain reduced to twenty-one from thirty years Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin (fully exploited from 1940) First films with sound in Britain |
Blunden's Undertones of War Huxley's Point Counter Point Isherwood's All the Conspirators |
Thomas Hardy dies 11 January. Memorial services in Westminster Abbey and Stinsford Parish Church. Hardy's Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres published. Florence Hardy publishes Life of Thomas Hardy in 2 vols Hardy's Winter Words |
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