德伯维尔的苔丝是一个悲剧。这部小说详细描述了一个年轻女孩失去天真和最终的毁灭。这部小说是托马斯·哈代的最后几部小说之一，他也以《无名的裘德》而闻名。下面是德伯维尔的苔丝的几句话。

"I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted." - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 4 "I won't sell his old body. When we d'Urbervilles was knights in the land, we didn't sell our chargers for cat's meat. Let 'em keep their shillings! He've served me well in his lifetime, and I won't part from him now." - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 4 "Thus, the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all respects..." - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 5 "Out of the frying pan into the fire!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 10 "But some might say, where was Tess's guardian Angel? Where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps... he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked... As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: 'It was to be.'" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 11 "My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 19 "I can't bear to let anybody have him but me! Yet it is wrong Tess him, and may kill him when he knows!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 28 "Yes; at that dance on the green; but you would not dance with me. O, I hope that is no ill-omen for us now!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 30 "you always courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have done through the past summertime!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 32 "You are very good. But it strikes me that there is a want of harmony between your present mood of self-sacrifice and your past mood of self-preservation." - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 35 "I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be; only - only - don't make it more than I can bear!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 37 "She would have laid down her life for 'ee. I could do no more." - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 40 "You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 45 "How can I pray for you, when I am forbidden to believe that the great Power who moves the world would alter his plans on my account?" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 46 "'You have been the cause of my backsliding,' he continued, stretching his arm towards her waist; 'you should be willing to share it, and leave that mule you call husband forever.'" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 47 "Remember, my lady, I was your master once! I will be your master again. If you are any man's wife you are mine!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 47 "O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and I can never, never forgive you! You know that I did not intend to wrong you - why have you so wronged me? You are cruel, cruel indeed! I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at your hands!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 51 "his original Tess had spiritually ceased to recognize the body before him as hers - allowing it to drift, like a corpse upon the current, in a direction disassociated from its living will." - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 55 "O, you have torn my life all to pieces... made me be what I prayed you in pity not to make me be again!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 56 "And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing." - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 59