"8:30. I finished writing "The Woodlanders", I do not feel regret, on the contrary, now I feel relief." Hardy left this note after finishing his work. The novel was rewritten 8 (!) times, its themes stirred up the centuries-old foundations of the country. The novel takes the reader to the very depths of rural England. The village of Little Hintok is so small that it’s difficult to find in the woods. But it is here that tragedies of "truly Sophocles grandeur" are played out. What is the reason for these tragedies? Illustrations by Elena Odarich.

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Woodlanders’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Thomas Hardy’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Hardy includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘The Woodlanders’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Hardy’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

This is the annotated edition including a rare biographical essay on the life and works of the author. In "The Woodlanders" we have the intimate sense of the mystery and the passion of nature; again we have the wonderful power of describing rural characters; again we have the closely knit and powerful action; we even have glimpses of the old humor. Still there is an indefinable something that separates the author of "The Woodlanders" from the author of "Far from the Madding Crowd." Twelve years have made Mr. Hardy a more practised writer, they have given him a wider experience, but they have not made him any more in love with life. On the contrary, as has been indicated, they have frequently made him see little in life except a purposeless struggle in the coils of an implacable fate. And so Giles Winterbourne in "The Woodlanders" fails in the pursuit of his love, which is his life, when Farmer Oak, in "Far from the Madding Crowd" succeeds. Honesty, loyalty, and love meet death for their reward; while a barely decent repentance on the part of a rather repulsive personage is rewarded by the love of a heroine who though scarcely noble is worthy of a better fate. It, therefore, matters little when we view "The Woodlanders" as a whole, whether the descriptions of the forests to be found in its pages are unexcelled in truth and beauty even by Mr. Hardy himself, or whether the scene which describes Marty South dressing the grave of Winterbourne is the finest in the whole range of our author's novels; for the total impression produced by the book is painful because the fate that rules its characters is to Mr. Hardy, as well as to his readers, the relentless fate of alien times and peoples. And yet how powerful and original the book is, and who else among modern Englishmen could have written it!

This carefully crafted ebook collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Under the Greenwood Tree Far from the Madding Crowd The Return of the Native The Mayor of Casterbridge The Woodlanders Tess of the d'Urbervilles Jude the Obscure A Pair of Blue Eyes The Trumpet-Major Two on a Tower The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid The Well-Beloved Desperate Remedies The Hand of Ethelberta A Laodicean The Complete Novels of Thomas Hardy contains all 15 classics of this great Victorian author. His novels mainly concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex, based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Thomas Hardy (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. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England. His most famous novels include Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure.