Far from the Madding Crowd thank him, he asks if she needs a shepherd. She uncovers her face and reveals herself to be none other than Bathsheba. She has recently inherited her uncle's estate and is now wealthy. Though somewhat uncomfortable, she employs him. Meanwhile, Bathsheba has a new admirer: the lonely and repressed William Boldwood. Boldwood is a prosperous farmer of about forty, whose ardour Bathsheba unwittingly awakens when – her curiosity piqued because he has never bestowed on her the customary admiring glance – she playfully sends him a valentine sealed with red wax on which she has embossed the words, "Marry me".
Far from the Madding Crowd 50; Hardy extended the reference for the 1895 edition. The village of Puddletown, near Dorchester, is the inspiration for the novel's Weatherbury. Dorchester, in turn, inspired Hardy's Casterbridge. In "The Mayor of Casterbridge", Hardy briefly mentions two characters from "Far from the Madding Crowd" – Farmer Everdene and Farmer Boldwood, both in happier days. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 48 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. In 2007, the book finished 10th on the "Guardian"'s list of greatest love stories of all time. The novel was retold by author F.J. Campbell in "The Islanders", set in