The Woodlanders

by Thomas Hardy, Samuel West (Read by)

Overview

Return to Thomas Hardy’s Dorset region.…

Set in the Dorset landscape familiar to Hardy novels, The Woodlanders concerns the fortunes of Giles Winterborne, whose love for the well-to-do Grace Melbury is challenged by the arrival of a dashing and dissolute doctor, Edred Fitzpiers. When the mysterious Mrs. Charmond further complicates the romantic entanglements, marital choice and class mobility become inextricably linked.

This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491574171
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	05/05/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester—in his writing. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Patricia Ingham is a Senior Research Fellow and Reader at St Anne's College, Oxford. She has written on the Victorian novel and on Hardy in particular. she is the General Editor of all of Hardy's fiction in the Penguin Classics and has edited Gaskell's North and South for the series.

Date of Birth:

June 2, 1840

Date of Death:

January 11, 1928

Place of Birth:

Higher Brockhampon, Dorset, England

Place of Death:

Max Gate, Dorchester, England

Education:

Served as apprentice to architect James Hicks

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; General editor's preface; Acknowledgements; Chronology; Abbreviations; Introduction; The Woodlanders; Editorial emendations; Textual notes; Record of variants – accidentals; End-of-line word division; Appendix A: the title-page verse; Appendix B: Hardy's prefaces; Appendix C: illustrations; Appendix D: description of substantive editions; Appendix E: compositorial stints for Macmillan's Magazine; Appendix F: 'pin-holes' in the manuscript of The Woodlanders; Appendix G: compositorial stints for the 1912 Wessex edition; Explanatory notes; Glossary of dialect terms; Map of Wessex.

Editorial Reviews

Samuel West gives a beautiful reading of Hardy's elegant novel about innocence lost and love tragically squandered. Grace Melbury has been educated much above her social station by a father who wanted her to have a better life than could be made in the woodland village of her birth. To assuage his own guilt about a past incident in his life, he had always intended for Grace to marry Giles Winterborne, an honest, reliable man. Grace and Giles had been dear friends since childhood, but when Grace returns to the village after her schooling, Giles seems beneath her in sophistication. Giles loses Grace to dashing doctor Edred Fitzpiers, a charming, unfaithful, weak man who is subsequently dazzled by the local aristocrat, a rather coquettish widow named Mrs. Felice Charmond. This story becomes much deeper through Hardy's elegiac prose and keen eye for detail. One never tires of West's dramatization. This quiet work won't appeal to all patrons, especially those who want only the latest best sellers. Although not one of Hardy's most well-known works (e.g., Jude the Obscure, Audio Reviews, LJ 4/1/98), this is a gem that deserves to be heard.--Nancy Paul, Brandon P.L., WI

Library Journal

The finest English novel.”—Arnold Bennett

From the Publisher