The Woodlanders

The Woodlanders

Thomas Hardy, the author of The Woodlanders, is "considered one of the greatest novelist in English literature"(Vol. 4). This genius was born on June 2nd of 1840 in Bockhampton, Dorset, England. He was the oldest boy in his family. Hardy began his writing career in 1862, at the age of twenty-two. In 1867, at the age of twenty-seven, he wrote his first novel. The novel was entitled, The Poor Man and the Lady. Today only bits and pieces of this book remain.

Some critics did not think that Hardy’s first book was cut out for publication. George Meredith, a reader for Chapman and Hall publishers, advised against the publication of The Poor Man and the Lady. He thought Hardy had potential and encouraged him to continue writing(Pettit). Practice makes perfect. In November of 1872, at the age of thirty-two, Hardy was asked to write a serial novel for Cornhill Magazine. This was the start of something really good for Hardy. Soon after this, his career sky rocketed and he started pumping out the manuscripts.

In 1874, Hardy began writing Far from the Madding Crowd. He was engrossed in the making of this book; it consumed him. While attending college classes, he resorted to writing on leaves, woodchips, stones, and whatever else he could find while moving between classes. This book marked the turning point of his career.

Not to long after this, his wife passed away. It did not seem that Hardy was too broken up over this tragedy because soon after his wife’s death, he married his secretary. The marriage only lasted for a little while because on January eleventh of 1928 Hardy died in his hometown of Dorset, England. His heart was buried in the "Wessex" countryside, in the parish churchyard at Stinsford. His ashes were placed next to those of Charles Dickens in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Wessex is a fictional place in England that Hardy made up, and placed his novels in its scenery. Its lush landscape is what is described in most of Hardy’s novels, especially The Woodlanders. The book has been described as being "alive with landscape"(Woodlanders). James Wood describes the book by saying it "is an anguished and contradictory meditation on belonging, on what it means to be rooted in a place"(Woodlanders). Wood also says that Hardy’s works are like Shakespeare’s, except Hardy’s works are like hard comedies and hard tragedies.

The Woodlanders was first published simultaneously in monthly serial parts in England’s Macmillan’s Magazine and in weekly parts in the United States in Harper’s Bazaar.