The Woodlanders

Critical edition of Thomas Hardy's eleventh published novel reflects Hardy's original artistic intention and is supported by essential contextual material.

Thomas Hardy (Author), Alan Manford (Edited by)

9781107046504, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 August 2019

788 pages, 13 b/w illus. 1 map 7 tables
23.4 x 15.8 x 4.5 cm, 1.22 kg

The Woodlanders (1887) was Thomas Hardy's elventh published novel and the one he claimed to like 'as a story, the best of all'. It is a story of wide appeal, having much to say on themes such as marriage and social class, and with a background revealing its author's profound knowledge and appreciation of many matters, particularly nature and country life. As part of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels and Stories of Thomas Hardy, this edition of the novel provides an authoritative and accurate text which aims to reflect Hardy's original artistic intention and represent the novel as it would have been read by his Victorian readers. The novel is supported by a comprehensive introduction, chronology and accompanying textual apparatus which allows the modern reader to trace the novel's evolution from composition to first publication and through several stages of revision in succeeding editions in the quarter of a century following its first publication.

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.

Subject Areas: Literary reference works [DSR], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literature: history & criticism [DS]