Far from the Madding Crowd

Summary

Wessex heaves under wind-battered skies where Bathsheba Everdene, mistress of her own furrowed kingdom, tilts at independence while three men orbit her like errant planets: the stolid shepherd Oak whose gaze clings to soil and constancy; Boldwood, a gentleman farmer cracked by obsession; and Sergeant Troy, scarlet as a British uniform, whose sabre flashes seduction. Betrothal becomes battlefield: she marries Troy’s swagger, only to watch him gamble away honour and life, swallowed by the surf he once mastered. A bullet from Oak’s steady hand ends the sergeant, and in the hush after gunsmoke Bathsheba sees that the land she fought to rule is meaningless without the quiet man who never left its furrows.

Synopsis

A girl farmer weds a faithless sergeant who is killed by her suitor, and realises she loves the bailiff.