
Jude the Obscure
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Brian Hall
-
By:
-
Thomas Hardy
About this listen
One of Jude Fawley's ambitions in life is a university education, but his dreams come crashing down around him when he is forced into marriage with Arabella. The marriage doesn't last long before his new bride abandons him for a different life.
Left with nothing more than his broken dreams, Jude moves to the city of Christminster, where he finds work as a stonemason. Here, he falls in love with Sue Bridehead, a woman of modern thinking. The two thwart convention and decide to live together instead of marrying; this results in the two of them being shunned by society. Eventually, their lack of convention sends them spiraling into poverty.
Jude the Obscure was Thomas Hardy's last novel. When first published, it was considered highly controversial due to its focus on an unconventional relationship and disregard for the rules of society.
Public Domain (P)2018 A.R.N. PublicationsListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Mayor of Casterbridge
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the backdrop of peaceful southwest England, where Thomas Hardy spent much of his youth, The Mayor of Casterbridge captures the author's unique genius for depicting the absurdity underlying much of the sorrow and humor in our lives. Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife, Susan, and baby daughter.
-
-
Hardy at his best
- By Barbara Bachner on 05-27-22
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When peddler John Durbeyfield learns that he may be a descendant of a noble family, he sends his oldest child, Tess, to “claim kin.” Blindly ushered into harm’s way, the strong-willed yet untinctured peasant girl is not prepared for the blighted course her life will take. Nor for those whose destructive desires will determine her fate, and force Tess to make only the most desperate of choices. From her tragic loss of innocence through betrayal and revenge, Tess’s struggle for survival challenged the era’s mores and the cruel indifference shown women in Victorian society.
-
-
Fantastic narration, compassion inducing tale
- By Susan G. on 09-27-20
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Far from the Madding Crowd
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gabriel Oak is only one of three suitors for the hand of the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene. He must compete with the dashing young soldier Sergeant Troy and the respectable, middle-aged Farmer Boldwood. And while their fates depend upon the choice Bathsheba makes, she discovers the terrible consequences of an inconstant heart.
-
-
Another Classic!
- By 🌸DARA on 06-07-13
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Hand of Ethelberta
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Opportunistic, shrewd and beautiful, Ethelberta resolves to disguise her humble beginnings and elevate her position in society. Crafting her career as a society poet and staging her family as her servants, she proves admirably adept at sustaining her own web of deceit as she reinvents herself and navigates the attentions of four different suitors. The wealthiest is not the one she loves... what will she do? This is a light-hearted urban tale, offering a different side of Thomas Hardy.
-
-
Good Read
- By D Mart on 09-18-24
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Return of the Native
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicholas Rowe
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the remote wildness of Egdon Heath, the crossed love affairs and marriages of a small group of people are played out against the background of nature’s beauty and indifference to mankind. Through a series of vivid incidents and encounters, The Return of the Native moves in a relentless drive towards tragedy, as the plans and dreams of the lovers miscarry, defeated by chance, or destiny or self-deception. In their unhappy stories, Hardy gives us a powerful dramatization of his bleak philosophy, his belief in man’s helplessness before the malevolence of the universe.
-
-
Thomas Hardy
- By Jeff Lacy on 05-06-17
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Woodlanders
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Woodlanders is vintage Hardy. The story revolves around the young woman Grace Melbury, who returns to the leafy world of Little Hintock and soon finds herself at the center of a number of tragic events. In penetrating, incisive, and beautiful prose, Hardy tells a moving tale of unrequited love as fate and the constraints of society thwart the happiness of our heroine. The leafy world of Blackmoor Vale and the hamlet of Little Hintock are all lovingly described by Hardy, who named The Woodlanders as the favorite of all his novels.
-
-
A Masterpiece of writing and narration!
- By Kathi on 05-17-14
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Mayor of Casterbridge
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the backdrop of peaceful southwest England, where Thomas Hardy spent much of his youth, The Mayor of Casterbridge captures the author's unique genius for depicting the absurdity underlying much of the sorrow and humor in our lives. Michael Henchard is an out-of-work hay-trusser who gets drunk at a local fair and impulsively sells his wife, Susan, and baby daughter.
-
-
Hardy at his best
- By Barbara Bachner on 05-27-22
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When peddler John Durbeyfield learns that he may be a descendant of a noble family, he sends his oldest child, Tess, to “claim kin.” Blindly ushered into harm’s way, the strong-willed yet untinctured peasant girl is not prepared for the blighted course her life will take. Nor for those whose destructive desires will determine her fate, and force Tess to make only the most desperate of choices. From her tragic loss of innocence through betrayal and revenge, Tess’s struggle for survival challenged the era’s mores and the cruel indifference shown women in Victorian society.
-
-
Fantastic narration, compassion inducing tale
- By Susan G. on 09-27-20
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Far from the Madding Crowd
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gabriel Oak is only one of three suitors for the hand of the beautiful and spirited Bathsheba Everdene. He must compete with the dashing young soldier Sergeant Troy and the respectable, middle-aged Farmer Boldwood. And while their fates depend upon the choice Bathsheba makes, she discovers the terrible consequences of an inconstant heart.
-
-
Another Classic!
- By 🌸DARA on 06-07-13
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Hand of Ethelberta
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Opportunistic, shrewd and beautiful, Ethelberta resolves to disguise her humble beginnings and elevate her position in society. Crafting her career as a society poet and staging her family as her servants, she proves admirably adept at sustaining her own web of deceit as she reinvents herself and navigates the attentions of four different suitors. The wealthiest is not the one she loves... what will she do? This is a light-hearted urban tale, offering a different side of Thomas Hardy.
-
-
Good Read
- By D Mart on 09-18-24
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Return of the Native
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicholas Rowe
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the remote wildness of Egdon Heath, the crossed love affairs and marriages of a small group of people are played out against the background of nature’s beauty and indifference to mankind. Through a series of vivid incidents and encounters, The Return of the Native moves in a relentless drive towards tragedy, as the plans and dreams of the lovers miscarry, defeated by chance, or destiny or self-deception. In their unhappy stories, Hardy gives us a powerful dramatization of his bleak philosophy, his belief in man’s helplessness before the malevolence of the universe.
-
-
Thomas Hardy
- By Jeff Lacy on 05-06-17
By: Thomas Hardy
-
The Woodlanders
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Woodlanders is vintage Hardy. The story revolves around the young woman Grace Melbury, who returns to the leafy world of Little Hintock and soon finds herself at the center of a number of tragic events. In penetrating, incisive, and beautiful prose, Hardy tells a moving tale of unrequited love as fate and the constraints of society thwart the happiness of our heroine. The leafy world of Blackmoor Vale and the hamlet of Little Hintock are all lovingly described by Hardy, who named The Woodlanders as the favorite of all his novels.
-
-
A Masterpiece of writing and narration!
- By Kathi on 05-17-14
By: Thomas Hardy
-
A Pair of Blue Eyes
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hardy's third novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, follows the story of Elfride Swancourt. The daughter of the rector of Endelstow, a sparse, sea-swept parish in Cornwall, Elfride is caught between two suitors of very different backgrounds: Stephen Smith, a young architect restoring the old parish church; and the respectable, older man of London society, Henry Knight. The blue-eyed and high-spirited protagonist must untangle the conflicting messages of her heart and her mind.
-
-
Depressing story & unbelievable central character
- By Molly R. on 08-14-17
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Desperate Remedies
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Melody Grove
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cytherea has taken a position as lady's maid to the eccentric Miss Aldclyffe. On discovering that the man she loves is already engaged to his cousin, Cytherea comes under the influence of Miss Aldclyffe's fascinating, manipulative steward Manston. Desperate Remedies contains sensational ingredients of blackmail, murder and romance, but with its insight into psychology and sexuality it already bears the unmistakable imprint of Hardy’s future genius.
-
-
Real Hardy, not his best but very good.
- By F Shaw on 03-21-23
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Wessex Tales
- By: Thomas Hardy
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Wessex Tales, a collection of short stories including "The Three Strangers", "The Withered Arm", and "The Distracted Preacher", deals with a number of timeless themes seen so often in Hardy’s work: marriage, class, revenge, and disappointed love. Many of the tales have a supernatural tinge, and all are set around Hardy’s much loved homeland.
-
-
A Sampler
- By Tad Davis on 06-08-14
By: Thomas Hardy
-
Jane Eyre
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Thandiwe Newton
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following Jane from her childhood as an orphan in Northern England through her experience as a governess at Thornfield Hall, Charlotte Brontë's Gothic classic is an early exploration of women's independence in the mid-19th century and the pervasive societal challenges women had to endure. At Thornfield, Jane meets the complex and mysterious Mr. Rochester, with whom she shares a complicated relationship that ultimately forces her to reconcile the conflicting passions of romantic love and religious piety.
-
-
Perfect!!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-21-16
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
The Mill on the Floss
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Fiona Shaw
- Length: 20 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mill on the Floss is one of the great works of English literature. It is perhaps the most autobiographical of all Eliot's novels. The relationship between its heroine, Maggie Tulliver, and her brother, Tom, closely resembles that of George Eliot and her own brother, Isaac. The subject of sibling affection was clearly a deeply poignant one for George Eliot - she also wrote a series of beautiful and evocative sonnets entitled 'Brother and Sister'.
-
-
Fiona Shaw makes George Eliot endurable
- By Starr on 04-21-16
By: George Eliot
-
Middlemarch
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 35 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.
-
-
Best Audible book ever
- By Molly-o on 12-25-11
By: George Eliot
-
Villette
- By: Charlotte Brontë
- Narrated by: Davina Porter
- Length: 22 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hailed as Charlotte Brontë’s “finest novel” by Virginia Woolf, Villette is the timeless semi-autobiographical tale of Lucy Snowe. Left with no family and no money, Lucy goes against her own timid nature and travels to the small city of Villette, France, where she becomes a school teacher in Madame Beck’s school for girls. During her stay, she falls in love—twice—and discovers an independent, inner strength rarely seen in women of her time.
-
-
The Divine Ms. Porter delivers as always
- By peachnmario on 03-17-15
By: Charlotte Brontë
-
Mrs. Dalloway
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.
-
-
One Tough Read Perfectly Delivered
- By Chris on 06-11-12
By: Virginia Woolf
-
To the Lighthouse
- By: Virginia Woolf
- Narrated by: Nicole Kidman
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To the Lighthouse is Virginia Woolf’s arresting analysis of domestic family life, centering on the Ramseys and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland in the early 1900s. Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge, Eyes Wide Shut), who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Woolf in the film adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
The Hours, brings the impressionistic prose of this classic to vibrant life.
-
-
A book that will challenge you to think.
- By Kelly on 04-23-17
By: Virginia Woolf
-
Persuasion
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anne Elliot has grieved for seven years over the loss of her first love, Captain Frederick Wentworth. But events conspire to unravel the knots of deceit and misunderstanding in this beguiling and gently comic story of love and fidelity.
-
-
Juliet Stevenson is Simply Amazing
- By Em on 04-15-12
By: Jane Austen
-
Hard Times
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Anton Lesser
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hard Times is Dickens's most political novel. Set in the industrial north of England, in Coketown, he examines the lives of working people, who are taught by the capitalists Gradgrind and Bounderby to think only of the facts of life and not to indulge in imagination. Gradgrind’s own children have been so educated and as a result are dysfunctional and disconnected from their feelings. Only the travelling circus company of Sleary seems to offer any hope of humanity in Coketown.
-
-
Very glad I kept going!
- By Bon Ami on 03-01-16
By: Charles Dickens
-
A Christmas Carol: A Signature Performance by Tim Curry
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Tim Curry
- Length: 3 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Signature Performance: Tim Curry rescues Charles Dickens from the jaws of Disney with his one-of-a-kind performance of the treasured classic. Our listeners loved this version so much that it inspired our whole line of Signature Classics.
-
-
Wonderful!!!
- By Alia on 12-11-09
By: Charles Dickens
What listeners say about Jude the Obscure
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 08-30-18
Don't read this.
The book was horrible. The performance was good. I really don't reccomend that you read it.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful