Upon its first appearance in 1895, Thomas Hardy&#8217;s <b>Jude the Obscure</b> shocked Victorian critics and readers with a frank depiction of sexuality and an unbridled indictment of the institutions of marriage, education, and religion, reportedly causing one Angli-can bishop to order the book publicly burned. The experience so exhausted Hardy that he never wrote a work of fiction again.<br><br>Rich in symbolism, <b>Jude the Obscure</b> is the story of Jude Fawley and his struggle to rise from his station as a poor Wessex stonemason to that of a scholar at Christminster. It is also the story of Jude&#8217;s ill-fated relationship with his cousin Sue Bridehead, and the ultimate tragedy that causes Jude&#8217;s undoing and Sue&#8217;s transformation. Jude the Obscure explores man&#8217;s essential loneliness and remains one of Hardy&#8217;s most widely read novels.