Far from the Madding Crowd is the first
successful novel by Thomas Hardy. The title was taken from Thomas Gray's
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
Gabriel Oak, financially ruined by his sheepdog driving his flock over a cliff as well as rejected by Bathsheba Everdene, is forced to leave his land. Previously, Bathsheba has hired him after he helps put off a fire in her farm. He soon rises from a shepherd to bailiff.
Unwisely, however, Bathsheba sends her neighbour, Farmer Boldwood, an anonymous valentine letter, something Boldwood seriously takes so as to fall in love with her.
Meanwhile, in another book scene, Sergeant Troy fails to marry the pregnant Fanny Robin because she went to the wrong church for the ceremony. Fanny dies during
childbirth. After Fanny's death, Troy courts Bathsheba and marries her secretly at Bath. It was not a happy marriage. Remorseful at Fanny's death, Troy leaves his wife and is mistakenly thought to be drowned. Troy later reappears as a member of a travelling circus.
Believing Troy to be dead, Bathsheba accepts the proposal of Farmer Boldwood. At the engagement party, Sergeant Troy reappears to reclaim his wife, Bathsheba. Boldwood is enraged, shoots Troy dead and turns the gun on himself, but unsuccessfully. He surrenders to the police, is tried and sentenced for execution. Eventually, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
In all the underlying drama, Gabriel Oak, who has been overseeing the farms of both Bathsheba and Boldwood proposes to Bathsheba once again. This time she accepts him.