Preface of The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy

Preface of The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy

Much of Hardy's oeuvre concerns the matter of marriage, and all of the complexities surrounding it; Though Hardy never explicitly mentions his own views on marriage within his works themselves, leaving his outlook to be implicitly discerned. However, this edition of The Woodlanders contains a preface, in which the views expressed by Hardy border on breaching the fourth wall as it relates to his greater body of work. He refers to himself as "the writer of the pages," and asserts that said writer supposes that there is more to be said of marriage than that it is a way to afford great happiness in this "sorry world."

Thomas Hardy

HathiTrust

Osgood, McIlvaine.

1896

Macbeth-Raeuburn, H. Illustrator.

Public Domain. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017.

Octavo, 459 pages, contains a map of Essex, and an etching by Macbeth-Raebrun, W.

Novel