Tess of the D'Urbervilles: 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 19th-century English novel, even Hardy's fictional masterpiece,  Tess of the D'Urbervilles  received mixed reviews when it first appeared, in part because it challenged the sexual morals of late Victorian England.