Riassunto
Riassunto di I boscaioli
A chi è rivolto
For readers who love rural stories about love and duty, village life among woods and orchards, and the choices that set loyalty against class and ambition.
Che cos’è questo libro
The Woodlanders is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in book form in 1887. It is set in Little Hintock, a small village hidden in the woods of Wessex, Hardy's name for the south west of England around his native Dorset. Hardy wrote it in the middle of his career as a novelist, after The Mayor of Casterbridge and before Tess of the d'Urbervilles. He liked it better than most of his own books.
The story is about a few people who live by timber, apple orchards and cider. A timber merchant has a daughter, and he has sent her to an expensive school so that she can rise above the woods. A quiet orchard man loves her. A clever young doctor arrives and sees her differently. A rich widow and a poor girl complete the circle. Each of them wants someone who is wanting someone else.
In this summary you will meet the main people and the choices that tie them together. You will see how the novel treats class, education, marriage and loyalty, and how the woods themselves seem to watch. We start in the village, with a small and strange act of selling.
In questo riassunto
- 1Little Hintock is a world made by treesFree
- 2Marty South sells her hair for nothing in return
- 3Melbury plans a better life for Grace
- 4Giles loses his footing in the village
- 5A learned doctor arrives and Hintock takes notice
- 6Grace chooses the doctor and the promise breaks
- 7Marriage shows the true Fitzpiers
- 8What the novel says about class, love and law
- 9How Hardy tells it and why it lasts
Punto chiave 1 di 9
Little Hintock is a world made by trees
Hardy opens in a hidden hollow of woodland, where the roads are narrow and the days follow the seasons. Little Hintock is a place where almost everyone earns a living from trees. Men fell timber and trim coppice. Women make spars, the pointed sticks that thatchers use to pin down roofs. Orchards are pruned, and apples are pressed into cider in the autumn.
This is not the gentle countryside of a postcard. Hardy shows work that is hard on hands and backs, and a village where everyone knows everyone else's business. People are tied together by old favours, old wrongs and old promises, and the ties are rarely written down. A word given thirty years ago can still decide who marries whom.
Two families stand at the centre. George Melbury is a timber merchant who has made money from the woods and now lives in the best house in the village. Giles Winterborne is a younger man who plants trees, grows apples and makes cider. He has little cash but a great deal of skill, and he knows the woods as a man knows his own hands.
Around them are other figures. Marty South is a poor young woman who lives with her sick father and works long hours at her spar making. Mrs Charmond is the owner of the big house nearby, a wealthy widow who is more at home in foreign cities than among her tenants. Beyond the village, the world of money, fashion and learning stays at a distance, but it is about to enter.
Hardy treats the woods as more than a setting. The trees grow, crowd one another and die, and the people in them do much the same. The novel keeps returning to this thought as its quiet frame. When you read, notice how often a scene of human feeling is set against a tree, a hedge or a fall of leaves.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Grace Melbury
- Grace is George Melbury's educated daughter, torn between her woodland upbringing and the refined life her father desires.
- Giles Winterborne
- Giles is a quiet orchard worker and cider maker who loves Grace and trusts her father's promise.
- George Melbury
- George is Grace's prosperous timber merchant father, whose ambitions for her conflict with his obligations to Giles's family.
- Edred Fitzpiers
- Fitzpiers is a learned young doctor whose family background and refined interests appeal to Grace and her father.
- Marty South
- Marty is a poor spar maker who tends her sick father and silently loves Giles.
- Felice Charmond
- Felice is the wealthy widow of Hintock House, restless in the countryside and seeking relief from boredom.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 139,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 9 h 15 min
- Listening time15 h 25 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about I boscaioli
What is The Woodlanders about?
It is about love and class in the Dorset village of Little Hintock. A timber merchant's educated daughter is torn between a faithful orchard man and a clever doctor, while loyalty and ambition pull the villagers apart.
Who are the main characters in The Woodlanders?
The main figures are Grace Melbury, her father George, the orchard man Giles Winterborne, the doctor Edred Fitzpiers, the spar maker Marty South and the wealthy widow Mrs Charmond.
Where is The Woodlanders set?
It is set in Little Hintock, a fictional woodland village in Wessex, Hardy's name for the south west of England. The setting is based on the countryside around his native Dorset.
Is The Woodlanders hard to read?
The language is plain by Victorian standards. Once the characters settle in, the story reads steadily.
What is the main message of The Woodlanders?
Hardy suggests that class and education can divide people from what they truly love, and that quiet loyalty matters more than status. He also shows how law and custom can trap people in poor choices.