The last colossus among the Victorians brooded upon humanity's brave, pathetic struggle for existence and recorded it with a profound but suspended judgment.  Obsessed as he was with the intricate and inexorable patterns woven by fate, he hewed out his monumental novels. By common consent, Jude the Obscure is his masterpiece. Since its publication in 1895, it has been accorded the world's admiration and is acknowledged today as one of the most completely unbiased works of fiction in the English language on the complicated questions of sex and instinct.