Exactly how steamy is this story?
G/ PG
There is some sex that takes place behind the scenes in this book, but being a proper Victorian, Thomas Hardy never describes it. The closest thing to a mention of sex is Sergeant Troy's claim that Bathsheba will be a ruined woman if he doesn't marry her; "ruined" in this sense meaning "not a virgin."
Apart from that, the steamiest scene you'll find is the one in which Troy shows off his sword-thrusting skills to Bathsheba in the middle of the forest. Ask any Freudian, and they will tell you that his sword is definitely a symbolic penis. And really, once you start diving into the literary analysis of Far from the Madding Crowd, there's a lot of raciness.
But you have to board the literary analysis train before the smut starts becoming obvious. That's why we're giving this book a dual rating: if you read it without second thought, it's a solid G. But start delving and you'll unearth all sorts of sexy stuff.
And if unearthing sexy stuff isn't a reason to analyze literature, we don't know what is.