"Jude the Obscure" is the last completed novel by the legendary English writer Thomas Hardy. One of Hardy's "Wessex" novel (a fictional region of Britain that Hardy invented), the book is generally acknowledged as one of the author's masterpieces. The story concerns a young scholar, Jude Fawley, who dreams of a classical education at the fictional "Christminster University" (modeled on Oxford), but who instead is drawn into a disastrous marriage. After his wife leaves him, he courts (and eventually becomes involved with) his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead, but her fear of intimacy puts enormous strain upon the marriage. What follows is a complex and shockingly tragic story entwining themes of organized religion, class structure, marital strife and homicide in a book that has been widely praised as one of the finest books in the history of English literature. Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" is presented here in its original and unabridged format.