Which Thomas Hardy novel is subtitled 'A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented'?

Thomas Hardy’s novel subtitled “A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented” is Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

Published in 1891, the novel follows Tess Durbeyfield, a young woman from a poor rural family who is told that they descend from the aristocratic d’Urberville line. Hardy sets the story in his fictional Wessex, a landscape based largely on southwestern England. Tess’s experiences expose the harsh double standards applied to Victorian women, especially judgments about sexual “purity” that were not imposed equally on men.

The subtitle was deliberately provocative. Hardy presents Tess as morally sincere and compassionate despite the suffering and social condemnation imposed on her. The book first appeared in a censored serial version in The Graphic, before being published in three volumes and later as a single volume. Its sympathetic treatment of a so-called “fallen woman” caused controversy.

A common mix-up is with Jude the Obscure, Hardy’s final novel, published in 1895. Another nearby fact readers often ask about is Hardy’s fictional setting: Tess belongs to the same imagined Wessex world that appears across many of his novels.