Works of Thomas Hardy discussion

There are quite a few biographies about Thomas Hardy. Which ones have you read?

We read The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, which he oversaw, in the group not too long ago. I've read an analysis of his works by Penelope Vigar - The Novels of Thomas Hardy.

The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy has to be important. How did you enjoy it, Brian? And do you recommend Penelope Vigar's book?

One thing I find important when recommending books about authors, is whether they are going to contain spoilers. It seem almost inevitable, and yet many readers like to read something about an author when they have only read a couple of their works, but are fired with enthusiasm :)

Some books are separated into chapters: one per work and this is useful for everyone. Is The Novels Of Thomas Hardy: Illusion And Reality like that?

An excellent biography is Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man by Claire Tomalin, but it's a while since I read it. I do remember it's chronological :)

I learned a lot from both books.

I haven´t read any of his biographies, but Claire Tomalin´s bio is on my tbr list, so good to hear it´s interesting!

Thanks Brian :)

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, Michaela.

I read Claire Tomalin’s biography of Thomas Hardy. As with most everything Tomalin has done, it was good. The only thing I disagreed with Tomalin on was her belief that Hardy became a great poet when he wrote his elegies that make up Satires of Circumstance, lyrics and reveries with miscellaneous pieces. In my opinion, his poems on the natural world, and his wry, astute observations on life and human nature that run through all his poetical works, are where his greatness rests.

"In my opinion, his poems on the natural world, and his wry, astute observations on life and human nature that run through all his poetical works, are where his greatness rests."

I like those the best too, John :) But it's purely subjective for me.

I just recently bought the Claire Tomalin biography but haven't read it yet.

It's very good, Laura. Detailed and methodical, as you would expect.

Not a biography but categorized with "Books about Thomas Hardy" Winter by Christopher Nicholson was an interesting fictional portrayal of an 80ish Hardy as he develops a crush on the actress playing the lead in a stage production of Tess. I enjoyed the speculation about his later life and relations with his second wife, Florence.

Sounds interesting Brian.

Was this Gertrude Bugler the local milkmaid, and later stage actress? I was going to do a post about her when we read Tess of the D'Urbervilles shortly :) If so it could be "faction".

Bionic Jean wrote: " Was this Gertrude Bugler the local milkmaid, and later stage actress? I was going to do a post about her when we read Tess of the D'Urbervilles shortly :) I..."

Yes it was Gertrude Bugler. Faction - don't think I've heard the term before, but it fits.
I'll look for your post on her as I am curious about her. I don't plan to read Tess as I re-read Tess during the summer of 2018 when this group had planned to but did not read it.
Tess is a good choice for the 1st book of the new /rebooted group as it may be the best combination of a popular and critically praised Hardy. My fave is Jude but you don't want to scare off some of the newbies right out of the box.

Exactly, Brian! My other thought was the first one - but I'm not so keen on that one.

"Faction" as I understand it, is like historical fiction, but a little more fact-based.

It's not a biography per se, and I haven't read it yet, but I picked up this book from a thrift store yesterday and it looks intriguing! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...

Oh that's really good critical series Rowena! I don't have that one, but they have one for several classic authors and they've all been well received. Do tell us what you think when you've had a better look.

One of the oldest of the biographies, and by general consensus a really good one, is Michael Millgate’s.

Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited

Yes, it seems so. Strange it only has 4 reviews on Goodreads!

I've read Claire Tomalin's biography. I do love her biographies and have read hers on Dickens as well - equally excellent. I had to look back at my review on this one as I read it almost 2 years ago...

I read it at point when I was starting to idolize Hardy a bit too much
- having only read and LOVED his writing - I wanted to bring myself back to earth and recall that he was, at the end of the day, a Victorian man. This book did the trick, lol.

I'll confess now to being a flagrant feminist, and a lot of what drew me to Hardy was how accurately he portrayed the plight of Victorian women. I wondered if this was purposeful or if he was just keenly observant. I came away from this biography with the personal conclusion that it was the latter.

One of the reasons I love Hardy so much is because of the powerful imagery he created through his words. According to Tomalin, he was particularly observant of his surroundings as he, for example, walked hours to school as a boy and through various other events of his life, which contributed greatly to his writing.
It also made me very nostalgic for times of old when perhaps people didn't look at their phones and electronics so much and instead paid attention to the world around.

I did have a bit of a disagreement with Tomalin regarding Emma; I felt that Tomalin was too critical of Emma. I got the impression that Tomalin was disgusted by Emma for 'trying to interfere' too much with Hardy's writing, whereas I greatly sympathize with Emma as a lost, childless, Victorian woman married to a man in love with love. And let's be honest, Hardy was a crap husband, lol. I also did NOT like Florence as portrayed in the biography, she got rid of all of Emma's cats! WTF! lol. That was an immediate dagger in the coffin for me (a dog lover).

I'd really love to read another biography and here another author's opinions! Def gonna check out one of the ones mentioned above.

Kelly wrote: "I got the impression that Tomalin was disgusted by Emma for 'trying to interfere' too much with Hardy's writing ..."

I felt that too! Plus she was a writer on her own account to start with for goodness' sake, and one has to wonder - at this time - how much pressure her husband put on her to give it up ...

I must read this bio again; lovely post, thanks Kelly!

Just discovered another book that falls under 'Books About Thomas Hardy' that was published this year. It's a fictional account focusing on the time immediately after the death of Hardy's first wife, Emma. The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry

Thanks Jane! I don't think anyone has mentioned that one. Do please let us know what you think if you read it. The reviews here are interesting, and attitudes vary.

Bionic Jean wrote: "One thing I find important when recommending books about authors, is whether they are going to contain spoilers. It seem almost inevitable, and yet many readers like to read something about an author when they have only read a couple of their works, but are fired with enthusiasm."

Ha! Yes, that's precisely what has happened! Beware, there are spoilers for all his major works in Thomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin. They're all mixed within the different sections (not specifically novel related), and there's no way of knowing how far she's going to go with the spoilers until it's too late. I haven't finished it yet, it's very readable so far.

Yes, I like that one very much, but it can be a problem with spoilers.

What is infuriating for me, is that the Large Print edition of Claire Tomalin's Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man does not contain the index! Nor any of the photographs. I've got an paperback out of the library just so that I can copy (and enlarge) the index, although all that will give me is an idea of what is in each chapter of course. They charge a heck of a lot for LP books, far more than for the original hardback, but rarely put the work in to rejig the index, and miss out any illustrations as well 😕

Bionic Jean wrote: "What is infuriating for me, is that the Large Print edition of Claire Tomalin's Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man does not contain the index! Nor any of the photographs."

I have the Kindle version which doesn't have an index (I presume the search function renders it unnecessary). But no photographs! I'd be annoyed, too. Jean. The photos are ridiculously small when viewed on a phone (I don't have a Kindle), but I also have Kindle installed on my laptop and the photos are easier to view there. 'Kindle for PC' and the phone app are both free. I was very anti eReader until I had laser surgery on my eyes. They were taking a long time to heal and I was forced to use the app. It was so much easier being able to enlarge the text and I found it didn't take long to get used to it. I also love to post status updates and copying and pasting is so much easier! I also love 'real' books too, there's nothing better than having a nice edition of a favourite.

Yes, kindle and kobo editions can be lazy about this too, although with one book about Victorian London on kindle, the footnotes took about a third of the book - and all pushed in at the end of course, not in the correct place. So I had actually finished the book a long time before I expected to!

I only use a laptop with an enlarged font - a phone would be impossible for anyone partially sighted like me. Kindle was such a boon, but it drastically cut down on the number of books making it to specialist Large Print - and it was only ever 1% of titles anyway 😕 Only this one biography of Thomas Hardy ever made it to LP!

I don't use any apps.

I've now finished Thomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin. I agree with Kelly, Florence doesn't come off well at all! One thing that started to depress me was the number of guests, friends and acquaintances who enjoyed the Hardy's kindness and hospitality, who then went on to criticise everything: their food, clothes, manner, home, garden... it was endless. Of course, people were great diary and letter writers back then, and much of this vitriol survived. What a price to pay for climbing the social ladder! Most of them sounded awful.

Tomalin gives as much attention and credit to the poetry as she does the novels, though you will encounter spoilers. It's very accessible, well researched and not overly burdened with data. I recommend it.

Jane wrote: ".One thing that started to depress me was the number of guests, friends and acquaintances who enjoyed the Hardy's kindness and hospitality, who then went on to criticise everything from their food, clothes, manner, home, garden... it was endless. Of course, people were great diary and letter writers back then, and much of this vitriol survived.."

OMG!! Think of the damage these trolls could have done of they had the internet back then.

I recently purchased a copy of Claire Tomalin's Thomas Hardy and plan to read it later this year.

It is very good Brian, although a good friend (who is a Thomas Hardy aficionado and lectures on him regularly) says the Michael Millgate one is the gold standard. It was published in 1982, but he revised it later.

Sadly I can't access that one, but I must review the excellent Claire Tomalin biography when I can!

Bionic jean wrote: "There are quite a few biographies about Thomas Hardy. Which ones have you read?"

Sadly, I haven't read any. :-( Over the course of my reading life, I've tended to fall into the pattern of reading books BY authors much more than books about them (partly because of the problem that others have mentioned, that secondary treatments are often minefields of significant spoilers for novels and stories!). So I've only now read through this fascinating thread, and I've never commented on it before.

Being a college librarian, though, I naturally see a lot of books about authors on the shelves. Some of them pique my interest; so if it isn't inappropriate to call attention to a book I haven't actually read, I'll mention one on Hardy that's often caught my eye: Thomas Hardy's World: The Life Work & Times of the Great Novelist and Poet by Molly Lefebure. (Perhaps it will pique someone else's interest too! :-) )

At 141 pages of actual text (there's also a two-page index, and another page of illustration credits, bibliography, and acknowledgements), it's a short book. But it's a tall one, a bit over 11 inches high, so the pages have plenty of room both for informative text and lavish illustrations, many of them in color. The author provides a one-page Introduction, two pages of Hardy chronology, and six chapters that follow her subject's life and writings, and posthumous legacy, in chronological order. Each of his novels is treated in its own section, which should reduce exposure to spoilers. (There are spoilers for at least two of the novels I've read.)

The late Molly Lefebure (she died in 2013, in her 90s) was a British writer of fiction and nonfiction for children and adults, and clearly a Hardy fan. She did her homework for this book, listing some 16 books in her bibliography, including the biography by Millgate mentioned above (but not Tomalin's, which was written after Lefebure's) and Hardy's collected letters. Many of these sources, and many parts of the book as well, deal with the world of Hardy's "Wessex" roots and his eventful lifetime.

This is far from being a definitive biography or critical treatment of the man and his work. But just from skimming it, it strikes me as a book that would provide a good introduction for a reader who doesn't know much about the author (especially if he/she has already read the novels, or doesn't mind spoilers). I've never added it to my to-read shelf or "maybe" shelf --but I could see myself doing so in the future if they ever aren't so bloated. If I ever do read a Hardy biography, this will be the one I'll pick. :-)

Very interesting, and not one l know! Thanks Werner.

The reason she did not mention Claire Tomalin's Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man is very probably because it was published in 2006, and the book you mention by Molly Lefebure's was 9 years earlier, in 1997. She does seem to have been quite a fan of Thomas Hardy's novels.

Thomas Hardy's World: An Illuminating Biography was published in 2017, but since (as Werner said) she died in 2013, I suspect it's a new imprint edition of an earlier one. It is 203 pages, and happily it is on kindle, for those of us who need accessible formats! Sadly the shorter one which Werner mentions is not available as a ebook. I agree Werner, that one great advantage (for those who do not know all the novels), is in dealing with the novels separately. However, it does sound as though Molly Lefebure has not given due attention to his poetry, which Thomas Hardy (and some critics) regarded as his greatest achievement.

Has anyone read her biographies?

I'm reading Siegfried's Journey, 1916-1920 by Siegfried Sassoon.
He was an ardent admirer of Thomas Hardy and was privileged to visit him in his home a few times. You can tell that Siegfried found Hardy to be a sincere person worthy of all his admiration.

The book isn't about Hardy but I wanted to share Siegfried's impressions of Hardy-which were very positive and human.

Rosemarie wrote: "I'm reading Siegfried's Journey, 1916-1920 by Siegfried Sassoon.
He was an ardent admirer of Thomas Hardy and was privileged to visit him in his home a few times. You..."

I would imagine that they would have lots in common since they were both poets that wrote about the horrors of war. I enjoyed Pat Barker's Regeneration about Sassoon in treatment in a war hospital for post-traumatic stress disorder. The book included some of Sassoon's powerful war poetry.

Rosemarie wrote: "He was an ardent admirer of Thomas Hardy and was privileged to visit him in his home a few times. You can tell that Siegfried found Hardy to be a sincere person worthy of all his admiration.

They were indeed friends, and shared a mutual respect for each other's poetry. Sassoon dedicated The Old Huntsman to Hardy.

I can’t see them mentioned above, but I read both ‘Emma: West Of Wessex Girl’ by Peter Tait (The Sundial Press 2013) and ‘Florence: Mistress Of Max Gate’ by the same author (The Sundial Press 2011) in 2015. I’ve rated them four and three stars respectively, so they made some impression on me although I only have hazy recollections of both.

I see from previous comments (Brian and Jean) that a Gertrude Bugler-based ‘faction’ tome is mentioned. Would this be ‘Winter’ by Christopher Nicholson (Fourth Estate 2014) which I rated four star but have no idea when?

Around the same time, Goodreads shows that I awarded three stars to ‘Max Gate’ by Damien Wilkins (Aardvark Bureau 2016 UK) a fictionalised account of the last days of our man and resulting controversies (I can’t remember if the cat ate Hardy’s heart or not) about his funeral and legacy. It’s narrated ‘with wit and brutal honesty by housemaid Nellie Titterington’.

David wrote: Would this be ‘Winter’ by Christopher Nicholson (Fourth Estate 2014) which I rated four star but have no idea when?"

I started Winter by Christopher Nicholson some time back and couldn't get into it. I found the writing rather lacklustre. I should give it another try.

Thanks David. This is interesting information!

Rosemarie wrote: "I'm reading Siegfried's Journey, 1916-1920 by Siegfried Sassoon.
He was an ardent admirer of Thomas Hardy and was privileged to visit him in his home a few times. You..."

This is serendipitous! This afternoon in the Corn Exchange in Dorchester, there was a lecture by Tracey Hayes of the Thomas Hardy Society on war poetry, focusing on Thomas Hardy and T.E. Lawrence (who also lived locally) who were introduced to each other by Robert Graves. It was a whole day of lectures, panels and interactive workshops, and another friend of mine said it was very good.

(I should have travelled to Dorset on Thursday, but sadly it wasn't to be.)

I read Mark Ford’s Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner. I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time, 4 years ago, but my memories of it are not sharp enough to share.

Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner is an intriguing title, Don! I must look out for that one. Thank you 😊

Jean: Another biography i’ve got on Amazon Kindle for $2.99 USD
Is AStudy of Thomas Hardy by D. H. Lawrence. Another Kindle book I got for $2.99 also, is Thomas Hardy: The World of His Novels. It’s not a biography but might be helpful to some members of the group.

Here are the links - thanks Donald!

Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays by D.H. Lawrence

Thomas Hardy: The World of his Novels by J.B. Bullen

We'll be interested in your thoughts, when you read them 😊

Can't vouch for these three books on Hardy and his women, but they look interesting:

Hardy's Women: Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses by Paula Byrne

Thomas Hardy's Women: In Life and Literature by Peter Tait

Woman Much Missed: Thomas Hardy, Emma Hardy and Poetry

Great - thanks!

Donald, can you see in the box where you type, that at the top right it says:

"add book/author (some html is ok)"

Click on "add book/author", type one of these book titles and then click "search". It should come up as the first on the list (or keep looking down it). Then click "add".

To add the author, move across to the author on that dropdown, and click on the correct one.

Could you do this for these 3 books please? (This is what I did for you before.) It will help everybody enormously as then we can click on your link to see the book details and blurb, as well as all the Goodreads reviews. It even links to where you can obtain various editions. Thanks. 😊

Hardy Women: Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses
Thomas Hardy's Women; In Life and Fiction
Woman Much Missed: Thomas Hardy, Emma Hardy, and Poetry

Yes! Thank you Donald.

I loved Millgate's Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited when I read it ten years ago. I have also read Thomas Hardy's Homes, Thomas Hardy Christmas Carollings, and Wilkins' Max Gate. I'm very much looking forward to beginning Tomalin's study with you all in a few days!

In addition to being a fan of Hardy, I'm a public librarian and bibliophile. Here are the other Hardy books which I own but have not read yet (some of which have been mentioned already):
- Thomas Hardy's England
- Thomas Hardy A to Z (Critical Companion) by Sarah Bird Wright
- Thomas Hardy's Wessex Scene
- Thomas Hardy, poet & novelist
- Young Thomas Hardy
- Thomas Hardy's Later Years
- Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy
- Thomas Hardy: The World of his Novels
- Thomas Hardy's World: The Life, Times and Works of the Great Novelist and Poet
- Thomas Hardy: His Career As a Novelist
- The poetry of Thomas Hardy
- Thomas Hardy (Bloom's Modern Critical Views) by William Golding
- Thomas Hardy: Behind the Mask (purchased at Hardy's birthplace shop, 2016)
- Thomas Hardy and His Philosophy (purchased at Max Gate, 2016)
- Thomas Hardy
- Thomas Hardy
- Winter (purchased at Max Gate, 2016)

I also have 30 distinct editions of Tess, my favourite novel.

If you'd like to see the full list of my Hardy books, visit my online catalog here: https://www.librarycat.org/lib/biblio...

Wow iosephvs, what an impressive list!! Thank you so much for this, so that we can all explore them at our leisure. I have the top one by John Fowles (wonderful photographs!) and maybe a couple of others in my Dorset caravan, but am tempted by more - especially the Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy. That's going on my Christmas list right now 😊

We look forward to seeing you in the Claire Tomalin read. And do take a look at our Tess of the D’Urbervilles folder
LINK HERE

Sadly GR will not let me put them in order, but they are titled by chapter numbers.

That's my favourite too, but wow, 30 editions! It's a shame you missed our read, but I think you will find them interesting. We discussed the various editions, and there are hundreds of comments across the 6 threads for the novel itself. Please add your own thoughts too, as you like in the relevant thread. I look forward to reading them.

iosephvs wrote: "I loved Millgate's Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited when I read it ten years ago. I have also read Thomas Hardy's Homes, [book:Thomas Hardy Christmas Carollings|3754..."

What an impressive list, iosephvs. I too love "Tess". Its one of my top five, favorite novels. I took a look at "Max Gate", and added it to my TBR list.

I'm so glad you found our group. I hope you will join us for the group read of Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy. Its starting today. Here's a link

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...