The Woodlanders

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.