Thomas Hardy · 1891 · road

Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel, subtitled A Pure Woman and prosecuted in the reviews for it. Tess Durbeyfield is sent to claim kin with a rich family who are not related to her, and everything that follows comes from that errand. Hardy drew a map of his Wessex, and every place in this book has a real Dorset village underneath it.

1. 1
   Marlott

   Marnhull, in the Vale of Blackmoor - a parson tells her father he is descended from the d'Urbervilles, the family horse is killed on the road, and a girl of sixteen is sent off to claim kin to pay for it.

2. 2
   Trantridge

   Pentridge, and the Stoke-d'Urbervilles, who bought the name. Alec keeps her at the poultry farm through the summer, and in the Chase one night in the fog does the thing the reviewers would not name.

3. 3
   Talbothays

   The great dairies in the Frome valley, and the happiest section of the book by a long way - the work, the summer, Angel Clare, and a woman who has decided she is entitled to be happy and nearly manages it.

4. 4
   Flintcomb-Ash

   A starve-acre farm near Nettlecombe Tout after Angel leaves her on their wedding night - swedes in frozen ground, a threshing machine that never stops, and Alec turning up again as a preacher and then not.

5. 5
   Sandbourne

   Bournemouth as a new resort town, where Angel finds her living as Alec's mistress in a lodging house - and she goes upstairs, and the landlady sees the red spot spreading on the ceiling.

6. 6
   Stonehenge

   They run north for a week and she sleeps on an altar stone in the dark, asking whether they will meet again after they are dead - and wakes with the police standing round the circle, and says she is ready.

7. 7
   Wintoncester

   Winchester, and Angel and her sister on the hill above the gaol watching for the black flag - and the sentence about the President of the Immortals having ended his sport with Tess, which Hardy never apologised for.