Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. AVictorian realist in the tradition ofGeorge Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry byRomanticism, including the poetry ofWilliam Wordsworth.[1] He was highly critical of much inVictorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain such as those from his nativeSouth West England.
Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region ofWessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom,Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in south-west and south central England. Two of his novels,Tess of the d'Urbervilles andFar from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on theBBC's survey of best-loved novels,The Big Read.[3]
"The Hardy Tree", aGreat Tree of London inOld St Pancras churchyard in London, growing between gravestones moved while Hardy was working there. The tree fell in December 2022.[4]
Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton (then Upper Bockhampton), a hamlet in the parish ofStinsford to the east ofDorchester in Dorset, England, where his father Thomas (1811–1892) worked as a stonemason and local builder. His parents had married atMelbury Osmond on 22 December 1839.[5] His mother, Jemima (née Hand; 1813–1904),[6] was well read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at the age of eight. For several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential.[7]
Because Hardy's family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at the age of sixteen, when he became apprenticed to James Hicks, a local architect.[8] He worked on the design of the new church at nearby Athelhampton, situated just oppositeAthelhampton House where he painted a watercolour of the Tudor gatehouse while visiting his father, who was repairing the masonry of the dovecote.
Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was acutely conscious of class divisions and his own feelings of social inferiority. During this time he became interested in social reform and the works ofJohn Stuart Mill. He was introduced by his Dorset friendHorace Moule to the works ofCharles Fourier andAuguste Comte. Mill's essayOn Liberty was one of Hardy's cures for despair, and in 1924 he declared that "my pages show harmony of view with" Mill.[12] He was also attracted toMatthew Arnold's andLeslie Stephen's ideal of the urbane liberal freethinker.[13]
After five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling inWeymouth, and decided to dedicate himself to writing.
In 1870, while on an architectural mission to restore theparish church of St Juliot in Cornwall,[14] Hardy met and fell in love withEmma Gifford, whom he married on 17 September 1874, at St Peter's Church,Paddington, London.[15][16][17][18] The couple rented St David's Villa, Southborough (nowSurbiton) for a year.
In 1885 they moved toMax Gate inDorchester, a house designed by Hardy and built by his brother. Although later the couple became estranged, Emma's death in 1912 had a traumatic effect on him and Hardy made a trip to Cornwall after her death to revisit places linked with their courtship. HisPoems 1912–13 reflect upon her death. He remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry.
In 1914, Hardy married his secretaryFlorence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior.
In his later years, he kept aWire Fox Terrier named Wessex, who was notoriously ill-tempered. Wessex's grave stone can be found on the Max Gate grounds.[19][20]
In 1910 Hardy was appointed a Member of theOrder of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for theNobel Prize in Literature. He was nominated again for the prize 11 years later and by 1927 had received a total of 25 nominations.[21][22] In 1923 he was one of the final candidates for the prize, but did not win.[23]
Hardy's interest in the theatre dated from the 1860s. He corresponded with various would-be adapters over the years, includingRobert Louis Stevenson in 1886 andJack Grein and Charles Jarvis in the same decade.[24] Neither adaptation came to fruition, but Hardy showed he was potentially enthusiastic about such a project. One play that was performed, however, caused him a certain amount of pain. His experience of the controversy and lukewarm critical reception that had surrounded his andComyns Carr's adaptation ofFar from the Madding Crowd in 1882 left him wary of the damage that adaptations could do to his literary reputation. So, in 1908, he so readily and enthusiastically became involved with a local amateur group, at the time known as the Dorchester Dramatic and Debating Society, but that would becomethe Hardy Players. His reservations about adaptations of his novels meant he was initially at some pains to disguise his involvement in the play.[25] However, the international success[26] of the play,The Trumpet Major, led to a long and successful collaboration between Hardy and the Players over the remaining years of his life. Indeed, his playThe Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse (1923) was written to be performed by the Hardy Players.[27]
From the 1880s, Hardy became increasingly involved in campaigns to save ancient buildings from destruction, or destructive modernisation, and he became an early member of theSociety for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. His correspondence refers to his unsuccessful efforts to prevent major alterations to the parish church at Puddletown, close to his home at Max Gate. He became a frequent visitor atAthelhampton House, which he knew from his teenage years, and in his letters he encouraged the owner,Alfred Cart de Lafontaine, to conduct the restoration of that building in a sensitive way.
In 1914, Hardy was one of 53 leading British authors—includingH. G. Wells,Rudyard Kipling and SirArthur Conan Doyle—who signed their names to the "Authors' Declaration", justifying Britain's involvement in theFirst World War. This manifesto declared that the German invasion of Belgium had been a brutal crime, and that Britain "could not without dishonour have refused to take part in the present war."[28] Hardy was horrified by the destruction caused by the war, pondering that "I do not think a world in which such fiendishness is possible to be worth the saving" and "better to let western 'civilization' perish, and let the black and yellow races have a chance."[29] He wrote toJohn Galsworthy that "the exchange of international thought is the only possible salvation for the world."[29]
Shortly after helping to excavate theFordington mosaic, Hardy became ill withpleurisy in December 1927 and died atMax Gate just after 9 pm on 11 January 1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed; the cause of death was cited, on his death certificate, as "cardiac syncope", with "old age" given as a contributory factor. His funeral was on 16 January atWestminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy had wished for his body to be interred atStinsford church in the same grave as his first wife, Emma. His family and friends concurred; however, his executor, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, insisted that he be placed in the abbey's famousPoets' Corner. A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford with Emma, and his ashes in Poets' Corner.[30] Hardy's estate at death was valued at£95,418 (equivalent to £7,300,000 in 2023).[31]
Shortly after Hardy's death, the executors of his estate burnt his letters and notebooks, but 12 notebooks survived, one of them containing notes and extracts of newspaper stories from the 1820s, and research into these has provided insight into how Hardy used them in his works. The opening chapter ofThe Mayor of Casterbridge, for example, written in 1886, was based on press reports of wife-selling.[32] In the year of his death Mrs Hardy publishedThe Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1841–1891, compiled largely from contemporary notes, letters, diaries and biographical memoranda, as well as from oral information in conversations extending over many years.
Hardy's first novel,The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher. He then showed it to his mentor and friend, the Victorian poet and novelistGeorge Meredith, who felt thatThe Poor Man and the Lady would be too politically controversial and might damage Hardy's ability to publish in the future. So Hardy followed his advice and he did not try further to publish it. He subsequently destroyed the manuscript, but used some of the ideas in his later work.[35] In his recollections inLife and Work, Hardy described the book as "socialistic, not to say revolutionary; yet not argumentatively so."[36]
After he abandoned his first novel, Hardy wrote two new ones that he hoped would have more commercial appeal,Desperate Remedies (1871) andUnder the Greenwood Tree (1872), both of which were published anonymously; it was while working on the latter that he met Emma Gifford, who would become his wife.[35] In 1873A Pair of Blue Eyes, a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of Emma, was published under his own name. A plot device popularised byCharles Dickens, the term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialised version ofA Pair of Blue Eyes (published inTinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff.[37][38] Elements of Hardy's fiction reflect the influence of the commercially successful sensation fiction of the 1860s, particularly the legal complications in novels such asDesperate Remedies (1871),Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) andTwo on a Tower (1882).[39]
InFar from the Madding Crowd, Hardy first introduced the idea of calling the region in the west of England, where his novels are set,Wessex. Wessex had been the name of an earlySaxon kingdom, in approximately the same part of England.Far from the Madding Crowd was successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next 25 years, Hardy produced 10 more novels.
Subsequently, Hardy moved from London toYeovil, and then toSturminster Newton, where he wroteThe Hand of Ethelberta (1876) andThe Return of the Native (1878).[40] In 1880, Hardy published his only historical novel,The Trumpet-Major. The next year, in 1881,A Laodicean was published. A further move to Wimborne saw Hardy writeTwo on a Tower, published in 1882, a romance story set in the world of astronomy. Then in 1885, they moved for the last time, toMax Gate, a house outside Dorchester designed by Hardy and built by his brother. There he wroteThe Mayor of Casterbridge (1886),The Woodlanders (1887) andTess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), the last of which attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman", and initially it was refused publication. Its subtitle,A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented, was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle classes.
Jude the Obscure, published in 1895, was the last novel written by Hardy. It was met with an even stronger negative response from the Victorian public because of its controversial treatment of sex, religion and marriage. Its apparent attack on the institution of marriage caused strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was concerned thatJude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical. Some booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, andWalsham How, theBishop of Wakefield, is reputed to have burnt his copy.[32] In his postscript of 1912, Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of the book: "After these [hostile] verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop – probably in his despair at not being able to burn me".[41] Despite this, Hardy had become a celebrity by the 1900s, but some argue that he gave up writing novels because of the criticism of bothTess of the d'Urbervilles andJude the Obscure.[42] However, in a March 1928 piece in theBookman that posthumously printed interviews with Hardy, he is quoted as saying that, in addition to the negative publicity, he chose to stop writing novels because "I never cared very much about writing novels" and "I had written quite enough novels."[43]
The Well-Beloved, first serialised in 1892 and written beforeJude the Obscure, was the last of Hardy's fourteen novels to be published, in 1897.
Considered a Victorian realist, Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living inVictorian England, and criticises those beliefs, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people's lives and caused unhappiness. Such unhappiness, and the suffering it brings, is seen by poetPhilip Larkin as central in Hardy's works:
What is the intensely maturing experience of which Hardy's modern man is most sensible? In my view it is suffering, or sadness, and extended consideration of the centrality of suffering in Hardy's work should be the first duty of the true critic for which the work is still waiting [...] Any approach to his work, as to any writer's work, must seek first of all to determine what element is peculiarly his, which imaginative note he strikes most plangently, and to deny that in this case it is the sometimes gentle, sometimes ironic, sometimes bitter but always passive apprehension of suffering is, I think, wrong-headed.[44]
InTwo on a Tower, for example, Hardy takes a stand against these rules of society with a story of love that crosses the boundaries of class. The reader is forced to reconsider the conventions set up by society for the relationships between men and women. Nineteenth-century society had conventions, which were enforced. In this novel Swithin St Cleeve's idealism pits him against such contemporary social constraints.
In a novel structured around contrasts, the main opposition is between Swithin St Cleeve and Lady Viviette Constantine, who are presented as binary figures in a series of ways: aristocratic and lower class, youthful and mature, single and married, fair and dark, religious and agnostic...she [Lady Viviette Constantine] is also deeply conventional, absurdly wishing to conceal their marriage until Swithin has achieved social status through his scientific work, which gives rise to uncontrolled ironies and tragic-comic misunderstandings.[45]
Fate or chance is another important theme. Hardy's characters often encounter crossroads on a journey, a junction that offers alternative physical destinations but which is also symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition, further suggesting that fate is at work.Far from the Madding Crowd is an example of a novel in which chance has a major role: "Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not missed her wedding, for example, the story would have taken an entirely different path."[46] Indeed, Hardy's main characters often seem to be held in fate's overwhelming grip.
In 1898, Hardy published his first volume of poetry,Wessex Poems, a collection of poems written over 30 years. While some suggest that Hardy gave up writing novels following the harsh criticism ofJude the Obscure in 1896, the poetC. H. Sisson calls this "hypothesis" "superficial and absurd".[42][47] In the twentieth century Hardy published only poetry.
Thomas Hardy wrote in a great variety of poetic forms, includinglyrics,ballads, satire,dramatic monologues and dialogue, as well as a three-volume epiccloset dramaThe Dynasts (1904–08),[49] and though in some ways a very traditional poet, because he was influenced by folksong and ballads,[50] he "was never conventional," and "persistently experiment[ed] with different, often invented, stanza forms and metres,"[51] and made use of "rough-hewn rhythms and colloquial diction".[52]
In a re-evaluation ofThe Dynasts in 2006 Keith Wilson wrote, "The Dynasts, this unusual work that allowed him [Hardy] to explore what he had noticed about human beings over the most ambitious canvas that he had ever attempted, should stand among his greatest achievements."[53]
Hardy wrote a number of significant war poems that relate to both theBoer Wars andWorld War I, including "Drummer Hodge", "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'" and "The Man He Killed"; his work had a profound influence on other war poets such asRupert Brooke andSiegfried Sassoon.[54] Hardy in these poems often used the viewpoint of ordinary soldiers and their colloquial speech.[54] A theme in theWessex Poems is the long shadow that theNapoleonic Wars cast over the 19th century, as seen, for example, in "The Sergeant's Song" and "Leipzig".[55] The Napoleonic War is the subject ofThe Dynasts.
Some of Hardy's more famous poems are fromPoems 1912–13, which later became part ofSatires of Circumstance (1914), written following the death of his wife Emma in 1912. They had been estranged for 20 years, and these lyric poems express deeply felt "regret and remorse".[54] Poems like "After a Journey", "The Voice" and others from this collection "are by general consent regarded as the peak of his poetic achievement".[49] In a 2007 biography on Hardy,Claire Tomalin argues that Hardy became a truly great English poet after the death of his first wife Emma, beginning with these elegies, which she describes as among "the finest and strangest celebrations of the dead in English poetry."[56]
Many of Hardy's poems deal with themes of disappointment in love and life, and "the perversity of fate", presenting these themes with "a carefully controlled elegiac feeling".[57]Irony is an important element in a number of Hardy's poems, including "The Man He Killed" and "Are You Digging on My Grave".[55] A few of Hardy's poems, such as "The Blinded Bird", a melancholy polemic against the sport ofvinkenzetting, reflect his firm stance against animal cruelty, exhibited in hisantivivisectionist views and his membership in theRoyal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.[58]
Although his poems were initially not as well received as his novels had been, Hardy is now recognised as one of the great poets of the 20th century, and his verse had a profound influence on later writers, includingRobert Frost,W. H. Auden,Dylan Thomas andPhilip Larkin.[52] Larkin included 27 poems by Hardy compared with only nine byT. S. Eliot in his edition ofThe Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse in 1973.[59] There were fewer poems byW. B. Yeats.[60] Poet-criticDonald Davie'sThomas Hardy and English Poetry considers Hardy's contribution to ongoing poetic tradition at length and in creative depth. Davie's friendThom Gunn also wrote on Hardy and acknowledged his stature and example.
Hardy's family wasAnglican, but not especially devout. He was baptised at the age of five weeks and attended church, where his father and uncle contributed to music. He did not attend the localChurch of England school, instead being sent to Mr Last's school, three miles away. As a young adult, he befriendedHenry R. Bastow (aPlymouth Brethren man), who also worked as a pupil architect, and who was preparing foradult baptism in theBaptist Church. Hardy flirted with conversion, but decided against it.[61] Bastow went to Australia and maintained a long correspondence with Hardy, but eventually Hardy tired of these exchanges and the correspondence ceased. This concluded Hardy's links with the Baptists.
The irony and struggles of life, coupled with his naturally curious mind, led him to question the traditional Christian view of God:
The Christian God – the external personality – has been replaced by the intelligence of the First Cause...the replacement of the old concept of God as all-powerful by a new concept of universal consciousness. The 'tribal god, man-shaped, fiery-faced and tyrannous' is replaced by the 'unconscious will of the Universe' which progressively grows aware of itself and 'ultimately, it is to be hoped, sympathetic'.[62]
Scholars have debated Hardy's religious leanings for years, often unable to reach a consensus. Once, when asked in correspondence by a clergyman, Dr.A. B. Grosart, about the question of reconciling the horrors of human and animal life with "the absolute goodness and non-limitation of God",[63] Hardy replied,
Mr. Hardy regrets that he is unable to offer any hypothesis which would reconcile the existence of such evils as Dr. Grosart describes with the idea of omnipotent goodness. Perhaps Dr. Grosart might be helped to a provisional view of the universe by the recently publishedLife of Darwin and the works ofHerbert Spencer and other agnostics.[64]
Hardy frequently conceived of, and wrote about, supernatural forces, particularly those that control the universe through indifference or caprice, a force he called The Immanent Will. He also showed in his writing some degree of fascination with ghosts and spirits.[64] Even so, he retained a strong emotional attachment to the Christian liturgy and church rituals, particularly as manifested in rural communities, that had been such a formative influence in his early years, and Biblical references can be found woven throughout many of Hardy's novels.Hardy's friends during his apprenticeship to John Hicks includedHorace Moule (one of the eight sons ofHenry Moule) and the poetWilliam Barnes, both ministers of religion. Moule remained a close friend of Hardy's for the rest of his life, and introduced him to new scientific findings that cast doubt on literal interpretations of the Bible,[65] such as those ofGideon Mantell. Moule gave Hardy a copy of Mantell's bookThe Wonders of Geology (1848) in 1858, and Adelene Buckland has suggested that there are "compelling similarities" between the "cliffhanger" section fromA Pair of Blue Eyes and Mantell's geological descriptions. It has also been suggested that the character of Henry Knight inA Pair of Blue Eyes was based on Horace Moule.[66]
Throughout his life, Hardy sought a rationale for believing in an afterlife or a timeless existence, turning first to spiritualists, such asHenri Bergson, and then toAlbert Einstein andJ. M. E. McTaggart, considering their philosophy on time and space in relation to immortality.[67]
Sites associated with Hardy's own life and which inspired the settings of his novels continue to attract literary tourists and casual visitors. For locations in Hardy's novels see:Thomas Hardy's Wessex, and the Thomas Hardy's Wessex[68] research site, which includes maps.[69]
D. H. Lawrence'sStudy of Thomas Hardy (1914, first published 1936) indicates the importance of Hardy for him, even though this work is a platform for Lawrence's own developing philosophy rather than a more standard literary study. The influence of Hardy's treatment of character, and Lawrence's own response to the centralmetaphysic behind many of Hardy's novels, helped significantly in the development ofThe Rainbow (1915) andWomen in Love (1920).[71]
Wood and Stone (1915), the first novel byJohn Cowper Powys, who was a contemporary of Lawrence, was "Dedicated with devoted admiration to the greatest poet and novelist of our age Thomas Hardy".[72] Powys's later novelMaiden Castle (1936) is set inDorchester, which was Hardy'sCasterbridge, and was intended by Powys to be a "rival" to Hardy'sThe Mayor of Casterbridge.[73]Maiden Castle is the last of Powys's so-called Wessex novels,Wolf Solent (1929),A Glastonbury Romance (1932) andWeymouth Sands (1934), which are set in Somerset and Dorset.[74]
Hardy was clearly the starting point for the character of the novelist Edward Driffield inW. Somerset Maugham's novelCakes and Ale (1930).[75] Thomas Hardy's works also feature prominently in the American playwrightChristopher Durang'sThe Marriage of Bette and Boo (1985), in which a graduate thesis analysingTess of the d'Urbervilles is interspersed with analysis of Matt's family's neuroses.[76]
Hardy has been a significant influence on Nigel Blackwell, frontman of thepost-punk British rock bandHalf Man Half Biscuit, who has often incorporated phrases (some obscure) by or about Hardy into his song lyrics.[84][85]
Hardy also produced minor tales; one story,The Spectre of the Real (1894) was written in collaboration withFlorence Henniker.[87] An additional short-story collection, beyond the ones mentioned above, isA Changed Man and Other Tales (1913). Ten stories that were never published in volumes during Hardy's lifetime have been gathered together and published asThe Excluded and Collaborative Stories by Hardy scholar Pamela Dalziel.[88] His works have been collected as the 24-volume Wessex Edition (1912–13) and the 37-volume Mellstock Edition (1919–20). His largely self-written biography appears under his second wife's name in two volumes from 1928 to 1930, asThe Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840–91 andThe Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892–1928, now published in a critical one-volume edition asThe Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, edited by Michael Millgate (1984).
The Architectural Notebook of Thomas Hardy (Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society, 1966, rev. ed. 2007)
The Personal Notebooks of Thomas Hardy (contains the two 'Memoranda' notebooks, the 'Schools of Painting' notebook, and the 'Trumpet-Major' notebook) (Macmillan, 1979)
The Literary Notebooks of Thomas Hardy, Volumes I–II (contains the three 'Literary Notes' notebooks and the '1867' notebook) (Macmillan, 1985)
Thomas Hardy's 'Studies, Specimens &c.' Notebook (OUP, 1994)
Thomas Hardy's 'Facts' Notebook: A Critical Edition (Ashgate, 2004)
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Millgate, Michael.Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2004.
Morgan, Rosemarie, (ed) The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy, (Ashgate Publishing), 2010.
Morgan, Rosemarie, (ed) The Hardy Review,(Maney Publishing), 1999–.
Morgan, Rosemarie, Student Companion to Thomas Hardy (Greenwood Press), 2006.
Phelps, Kenneth.The Wormwood Cup: Thomas Hardy in Cornwall. Padstow: Lodenek Press, 1975.
Pinion, F. B.Thomas Hardy: His Life and Friends. London: Palgrave, 1992.
Pite, Ralph.Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life. London: Picador, 2006.
Saxelby, F. Outwin.A Thomas Hardy dictionary : the characters and scenes of the novels and poems alphabetically arranged and described (London: G. Routledge, 1911).
Dorset Museum, Dorchester, Dorset, contains the largest Hardy collections in the world, donated directly to the Museum by the Hardy family and inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register for the United Kingdom.
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