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The preface explains how Hardy adapted “Wessex” from early English history and why he confined its imagined community to the pages of his chronicles. Chapter 1 begins with a vivid portrait of Farmer Oak, including his appearance and personal identity, then sets up the first incident through descriptive narration.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/far-from-the-madding-crowd-novel-chapter-1-description-of-farmer-oak-an-incident/330557/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/far-from-the-madding-crowd-novel-chapter-1-description-of-farmer-oak-an-incident/330557.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Theodora","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-04","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":52},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the preface explain about Hardy’s use of “Wessex”?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It describes Hardy’s decision to adopt “Wessex” from early English history and assign it a fictitious, modern significance in the stories.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"Why does Hardy claim his imagined Wessex was unique to the novels at first?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"He states that until the present story announced this contemporaneous Wessex in 1874, the expression would have been taken to refer to a much earlier period, not modern life.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What is introduced at the start of Chapter 1?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Chapter 1 opens by describing Farmer Oak’s appearance and identity, beginning with the distinctive way he smiles and the details of his face and name.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},330557,1790054042,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":52,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},687197207919,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/a000253d6f5f7c60be?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779446848396160552","Far from the Madding Crowd  \nHardy, Thomas  \nPublished: 1874  \nType(s): Novels, Romance  \nSource: [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/107](http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/107)  \nAbout Hardy:  \nThomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist, short story writer, and poet of the naturalist movement. The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-imaginary county of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his fifties, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after the 1960s Movement. Source: Wikipedia  \nAlso available on Feedbooks for Hardy:  \n• Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)  \n• Jude The Obscure (1895)  \n• The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)  \n• Desperate Remedies (1874)  \n• Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)  \n• The Three Strangers (1883)  \n• A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913)  \n• Two on a Tower (1882)  \n• A Laodicean: a Story of To-day (1881)  \n• The Woodlanders (1887)  \nCopyright: This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA.  \nNote: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks.  \n[http://www.feedbooks.com](http://www.feedbooks.com)  \nStrictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes.  \nPreface  \nIn reprinting this story for a new edition I am reminded that it was in the chapters of \"Far from the Madding Crowd,\" as they appeared month by month in a popular magazine, that I first ventured to adopt the word\"Wessex\" from the pages of early English history, and give it a fictitious significance as the existing name of the district once included in that extinct kingdom. The series of novels I projected being mainly of the kind called local, they seemed to require a territorial definition of some sort to lend unity to their scene. Finding that the area of a single county did not afford a canvas large enough for this purpose, and that there were objections to an invented name, I disinterred the old one. The press and the public were kind enough to welcome the fanciful plan, and willingly joined me in the anachronism of imagining a Wessex population living under Queen Victoria;—a modern Wessex of railways, the penny post, mowing and reaping machines, union workhouses, lucifer matches, labourers who could read and write, and National school children. But I believe I am correct in stating that, until the existence of this contemporaneous Wessex was announced in the present story, in 1874, it had never been heard of, and that the expression, \"a Wessex peasant,\" or \"a Wessex custom,\" would theretofore have been taken to refer to nothing later in date than the Norman Conquest.  \nI did not anticipate that this application of the word to a modern use would extend outside the chapters of my own chronicles. But the name was soon taken up elsewhere as a local designation. The first to do so was the now defunct Examiner, which, in the impression bearing date July 15, 1876, entitled one of its articles \"The Wessex Labourer,\" the article turning out to be no dissertation on farming during the Heptarchy, but on the modern peasant of the south-west counties, and his presentation in these stories.  \nSince then the appellation which I had thought to reserve to the horizons and landscapes of a merely realistic dream-country, has become more and more popular as a practical definition; and the dream-country has, by degrees, solidified into a utilitarian region which people can goto, take a house in, and write to the papers from. But I ask all good and gentle readers to be so kind as to forget this, and to refuse steadfastly to believe that there are any inhabitants of a Victorian Wessex outside the pages of this and the companion volumes in which they were first discovered.  \nMoreover, the village called Weatherbury, wherein the scenes of the present story of the series are for the most part laid, would perhaps be hardly discernible by the explorer, without help, in any existing place nowadays","cbCainpohUBfQNNW","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCainpohUBfQNNW","pdf",1756303,381,"English","# Preface\n# Chapter 1 - Description of Farmer Oak—An Incident","[{\"question\":\"What does the preface explain about Hardy’s use of “Wessex”?\",\"answer\":\"It describes Hardy’s decision to adopt “Wessex” from early English history and assign it a fictitious, modern significance in the stories.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does Hardy claim his imagined Wessex was unique to the novels at first?\",\"answer\":\"He states that until the present story announced this contemporaneous Wessex in 1874, the expression would have been taken to refer to a much earlier period, not modern life.\"},{\"question\":\"What is introduced at the start of Chapter 1?\",\"answer\":\"Chapter 1 opens by describing Farmer Oak’s appearance and identity, beginning with the distinctive way he smiles and the details of his face and name.\"}]","Far from the Madding Crowd - Novel - Chapter 1 - Description of Farmer Oak - An Incident | PDF",1789989407,587]