The Woodlanders
novel by Hardy
The Woodlanders, novel by Thomas Hardy, published serially in Macmillan’s Magazine from 1886 to 1887 and in book form in 1887. The work is a pessimistic attack on a society that values high status and socially sanctioned behaviour over good character and honest emotions. The story begins as Grace Melbury, daughter of a timber merchant in a Dorset village, returns from finishing school and rejects her simple but understanding fiancé, the apple grower Giles Winterbourne....