You remember the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In the story a beautiful young woman has to choose between three men: one is too boring and creepy, one is too sexy and sleazy and one is juuuuuuuuust right.Oh, wait. Sorry. That's Far from the Madding Crowd we're talking about. In this novel by Thomas Hardy, we have not a love triangle but a love rectangle, where three different men vie for the love of super-pretty Bathsheba. This all goes down in the English countryside, which is supposed to be all birdies chirping and little lambs frolicking, but because of this insane foursome, devolves into insanity, dead babies, faked deaths and jealous lovers shooting people in the chest.The title of Far from the Madding Crowd suggests that life is way easier once you leave the hustle and bustle of the big city behind and go to find peace in the countryside. Ha! Not with these characters. They're playing head games and drinking cider and dealing with so much internal drama that it's a wonder that their crops get planted or harvested at all.When Thomas Hardy first published Far from the Madding Crowd in 1874, he hadn't yet become the really big deal he'd go on to be. It was Madding, though, that gave him his first widespread success. And it's not hard to see why. This novel is more chock-full of juicy drama than a pretty English farm is full of adorable lambs.Thomas Hardy would eventually become famous for writing super gloomy stories like Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude The Obscure. And you definitely get some of that gloom n' doom in Far from the Madding Crowd. But you also get a little bit of happiness in the end, a little hilarity in the middle, and a glimpse of rural England that makes it seem less William Wordsworth -style idyllic and more Deliverance-style creeptastic.Maybe that's why this novel launched Thomas Hardy into the literary big league and inspired four film adaptations: the first in freaking 1915 and the latest due for release in 2015. That's right--this is a novel that's been being adapted to film for one hundred years. Maybe it's because Far from the Madding Crowd is a drama-filled English countryside sex nightmare, or maybe it's just because it contains a bunch of cute moments with baby sheep. You be the judge.