Harper's said of Hardy that ""what is best in him we think is better than either George Eliot or Charles Reade; his portrayal of simple life and his love of nature are more intimate and perfect than hers, and his operation of the plot is never so open and mechanical as Reade's."" The Woodlanders is one of Thomas Hardy's finest novels. It presents a portrait of five people in an English village who are tangled in a drama of passion, betrayal, poverty, and pride.