The Woodlanders by Hardy, Thomas - 1887

London: Macmillan and Co, 1887. First edition, one of 860 copies bound (of 1,000 printed). [iv], 302, [2], ad]; [iv], 328; [iv]; 316 pp. 3 vols. 8vo. Publisher's dark green buckram-grain cloth blocked in black on front and blind on back, spine lettered in gilt, dark-brown endpapers. Slight lean, some minor soiling to boards with small wear to spine ends, an excellent copy. Housed in green morocco-backed leather clamshell case. First edition, one of 860 copies bound (of 1,000 printed). [iv], 302, [2], ad]; [iv], 328; [iv]; 316 pp. 3 vols. 8vo. Hardy's own favorite. First edition in the publisher's primary binding, of the novel which Hardy occasionally described as his best and favorite, "set in the part of north-west Dorset in which Hardy's mother's family had lived. Although it lacks the structural assurance of its predecessor, its plot again depends on the intermeshing of emotional and economic issues. The characters live among the trees on which their livelihoods depend, and when Giles Winterbourne suffers financial losses he loses also his promised bride, educated to higher levels of class expectation, and eventually his own life" (ODNB). Purdy, pp 54-57