Tess of the dUrbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a censored and serialised version, published by the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic in 1891, then in book form in three volumes in 1891, and as a single volume in 1892. Though now considered a major nineteenth-century English novel and possibly Hardys fictional masterpiece, Tess of the dUrbervilles received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.