“A great teacher,” Jeremy Paxman, BBC’s Newsnight.

“Clearly Francis Gilbert is a gifted and charismatic teacher,” Philip Pullman, author of Northern Lights.

“Gilbert writes so well that you half-suspect he could give up the day job,” The Independent.

Are you a student struggling to understand Thomas Hardy’s classic novel The Far From The Madding Crowd?

Or are you an educator wanting ready-made exercises and guidance to help you teach this difficult text? Do your students need support to understand the language properly and work independently on the book?

This edition of Hardy’s classic pastoral romance contains a comprehensive study guide to the work as well as extensive questions for students to work on in order to help their understanding. Aimed specifically at pupils reading the book as an exam text, there is a detailed introduction which outlines how to understand the difficult language, how to write top grade essays, and how to discuss the contexts of the novel. The complete text is punctuated by useful comments and engaging tasks on every chapter with answers provided at the back. When you buy the paperback, you will be able to access the e-book for free and use many of the web links which are embedded throughout the text.