“She was of the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises.” – From Far from the Madding Crowd Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy’s fourth novel and first great literary success appeared originally as a monthly serial in the Cornhill Magazine in 1874. It tells the story of Gabriel Oak who lives an ordinary shepherd life on a farm of a woman he proposed to once without any positive outcome. Far From the Madding Crowd, rich in romance, pathos and tragedy, raising many questions about society, morality, religion, the contrast between a good life and its rewards, is a complicated love story visualizing how tiny little actions might cause huge consequences. Thomas Hardy’s prose increases the value of a mastery language and in this novel of his, combining this talent with the concern of modernity in a rapidly industrializing society, he with no doubt created one of the major novels of the English tradition.