Implacable fate plays a major role in the novels of Thomas Hardy. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles it wreaks havoc in the life of its heroine and makes her the victim of forces beyond her control. Her story, grim and unrelieved in its pathos, is told in the manner of heroic tragedy. The fate of the novel itself is, in a sense, a measure of its quality and the strong feelings it aroused. When it was first published, Tess of the d'Urbervilles was shunned and proclaimed immoral. Now it is acknowledged as one of the notable literary achievements of the last decade of the nineteenth century.