'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' Summary

The novel is set in an impoverished rural England, Thomas Hardy's fictional Wessex, during the Long Depression of the 1870s. Tess is the oldest child of John and Joan Durbeyfield, uneducated peasants. However, John is given the impression by Parson Tringham that he may have noble blood, as "Durbeyfield" is a corruption of "D'Urberville", the surname of an extinct noble Norman family. Knowledge of this immediately goes to John's head.

That same day, Tess participates in the village May Dance, where she first sees Angel Clare, youngest son of Reverend James Clare. Angel is on a walking tour with his two brothers, but stops to join the dance and partners several other girls. He notices Tess too late to dance with her, as he is already late in returning to his brothers. Tess feels slighted.

Tess's father gets too drunk to drive a load of beehives to a neighbouring town that night, and so Tess undertakes the journey herself with her younger brother. However, she falls asleep at the reins, and the family's only horse, Prince, encounters a speeding wagon and is fatally wounded. Tess feels so guilty over Prince's death and the economic consequences for the family that she agrees, against her better judgment, to visit Mrs. d'Urberville, a rich widow in a rural mansion near the town of Trantridge, and "claim kin". She is unaware that in reality, Mrs. d'Urberville's husband Simon Stoke adopted the surname, even though he was unrelated to the real d'Urbervilles.

Tess fails to meet Mrs. d'Urberville, but chances on her libertine son, Alec, who takes a fancy to Tess and secures her a position as poultry keeper on the estate. Although Tess tells her parents that she fears he might try to seduce her, they encourage her to accept the job, secretly hoping Alec might marry her. Tess dislikes Alec but endures his persistent unwanted attentions while earning enough to replace her family's horse. Despite his often cruel and manipulative behaviour, the threat that Alec presents to Tess's virtue is sometimes obscured for Tess by her inexperience and almost daily commonplace interactions with him.

Late one night, walking home from town with some other Trantridge villagers, Tess inadvertently antagonizes Car Darch, Alec's most recently discarded favourite, and finds herself in physical danger. When Alec rides up and offers to "rescue" her from the situation, she accepts. Instead of taking her home, however, he rides through the fog until they reach an ancient grove in a forest called "The Chase", where he informs her that he is lost and leaves on foot to get his bearings. Alec returns to find Tess asleep, and it is implied that he rapes her.

Mary Jacobus, a commentator on Hardy's works, speculates that the ambiguity may have been forced on the author to meet publisher requirements and the "Grundyist" readership of his time.