Tara Chirpy / 17 March 2025 / Categories: Books, Fiction

The Woodlanders

Not so well known Thomas Hardy novel

Like almost all of Thomas Hardy’s novels this story is set in a picture painted English village of the 19th century, Little Hintock and his heroine as invocatiive as Bathsheba Everdene in Far From the Madding Crowd or Tess Durbeyfield in Tess of the D’Ubervilles.

When Grace Melbury returns home after finishing school, her father timber merchant George suggests her marry Dr. Fitzpiers.

Grace has got less than no interest in the Dr. It’s her childhood friend Giles Winterbourne who completes the love triangle.

Giles was promised Grace’s hand before she left but after a series of missteps and faux pas, Giles loses his house and George’s approval as a worthy match for his daughter.

Grace and Giles have other plans and The novel addresses critical themes like the “myth of the pastoral”, property versus propriety, and the destructive nature of rigid social status and social mores.

Hardy revisits these themes throughout his work but never so strongly and with such commitment as in the Woodlanders.

I’ve heard people say all Hardy’s books are the same and I suppose like Dickens the style and nuance runs through each work.

In this lesser known book, Grace does end up marrying the more successful and more appropriate in her father’s eyes Dr. Edred Fitzpiers but it’s not good, doesn’t last and Grace manages escape back to Giles through some legal loophole allowing divorce, the most scandalous of acts at the time, the end of the 19th century.

It is hard to get into the first 50 pages are a bit slow and the opening might feel unrelated to the rest of the plot. My advice stick with it.

Like so many brilliant genius books you don’t piece the plot together until the last few pages which for me makes The Woodlanders even better than the Mayor of Casterbridge.

I think it’s my favourite Thomas Hardy novel simply because he pushes further and harder than ever towards the emancipation of women.