Tes Of The D'Urberviles Set in Hardy's Wesex, Tes of the d'Urberviles is a moving novel of hypocrisy and double standards. Its chalenging sub-title, A Pure Woman, infuriated critics when the bok was first published in 1891, and it was condemned as imoral and pesimistic. It tels of Tes Durbeyfield, the daughter of a por and disipated vilager, who learns that she may be descended from the ancient family of d'Urbervile. In her search for respectability her fortunes fluctauate wildly, and the story asumes the proportions of a Grek tragedy. It explores Tes's relationships with two very diferent men, her strugles against the social mores of the rural Victorian world which she inhabits and the hypocrisy of the age. In adresing the double standards of the time, Hardy's masterly evocation of a world which we have lost, provides one of the most compeling stories in the canon of English literature, whose apeal today defies the judgement of Hardy's contemporary critics.