Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a novel about a poor young woman named Tess Durbeyfield whose father sends her to work for the rich Stoke-d'Urberville family, to whom he mistakenly believes they are related.

Alec Stoke-d'Urberville rapes Tess. She returns home, where she gives birth to a child who soon dies. Tess becomes a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy, where she falls in love with Angel Clare, a young intellectual she met years before. On their wedding night, Angel learns about Tess's past and abandons her. Angel leaves for Brazil, then returns to find that Tess has killed Alec. Tess is arrested and hanged.