Frederic Raphael

On their third identical voyage from London to the Riviera, a couple explore their 12-year marriage in a series of wry and illuminating flashbacks. They reminisce about the glorious beginning of their love affair, the early years of marriage and the events that led to their subsequent infidelities. As they try to understand their relationship, they realize they must accept how they have changed if they are to rekindle their original love.

Bathsheba Everdene is a willful, passionate girl who is never satisfied with anything less than a man's complete and helpless adoration. She captures the lives and loves of three very different men. Gabriel Oak is a sheep farmer who is captivated by her beauty and proposes marriage. William Boldwood is an older, prosperous man who had been a confirmed bachelor. Sergeant Frank Troy is a handsome, but reckless swordsman whose given to sudden fits of...