The Woodlanders: Unabridged edition (Immortal Classics) - Tapa blanda

Grace Melbury is promised to her longtime companion, Giles Winterborne, a local woodlander and a gentle, steadfast man. When her socially motivated father pressures her to wed the ambitious doctor Edred Fitzpiers, Grace’s loyalties shift—and her decision leads to tumultuous consequences. Set in the secluded forest community of Little Hintock, Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders inextricably links the dramatic English landscape with the story of a woman caught between two rivals of radically different social statures. With its explorations of class and gender, lust and betrayal, The Woodlanders is one of Hardy’s most vivid and powerful works and the novel was his own personal favourite.

Thomas Hardy, OM (1840 - 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of novels, including Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Most of his fictional works – initially published as serials in magazines – were set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex. They explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances.