Works of Thomas Hardy discussion
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Thomas Hardy
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Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man, by Claire Tomalin
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The reading officially begins today. This will be a casual group read, where everyone can read at their own pace. I plan to read about one chapter a week. There are 24 chapters, plus a Prologue and Epilogue. At that rate, I should finish the book by the end of February 2025. I will post on Sunday evenings with comments and spoiler warnings about the upcoming chapter.
I hope that everyone will please comment whenever you like, about whatever chapter you are on. You do not have to follow my pace. As you comment, please keep spoilers in mind for anyone who has not read all/most of the Hardy novels.
*** IMPORTANT NOTE: Please be aware that this biography does contain SPOILERS for some of Thomas Hardy's novels. In my experience, I tend to forget the spoilers as I'm reading biographies. At least most of the time. But I know that is not the case for everyone. So, I will endeavor to warn the group as spoilers appear, and I encourage others to do that as well if you are reading ahead of me.
I can tell you the Prologue is completely spoiler safe, and worth reading. There is a spoiler in first chapter, ("Mother") for anyone who has not read Far From the Madding Crowd. In my edition, the spoiler was on page 5. The rest of the chapter is fine.
Speaking of editions, any edition is fine. I am using a paperback edition of the one linked on this thread. It is available in hard cover, paperback and audible. Audio books are wonderful, but I also recommend getting a physical copy as it includes pictures and a map of Higher Brockhampton and Max Gate (the areas where Hardy lived).
I hope we all enjoy the read, which should cast new light on many of the stories and poems we know by Thomas Hardy.
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Claire Tomalin
I have my copy and will get it out. I'm looking forward to this read. Not sure of the pace I'll read at but will be wary of spoiler alerts in my posts.
Thanks, Bridget, for leading this read.
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Tomalin was born Claire Delavenay on 20 June 1933 in London, the daughter of English composer Muriel Herbert and French academic Émile Delavenay. She studied at Cambridge.
In 1974 she published her first book The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, which won the Whitbread Book Award. She has published many more biographies, here is a sample:
• Shelley and His World (1980)
• Jane Austen: A Life (1997)
• Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (2002)
• Charles Dickens: A Life (2011)
• The Young H.G. Wells: Changing The World (2021)
It was in 2006, that she published the work we will be reading “Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man”. It was followed by a television film about Hardy, and she published a collection of Hardy's poems.
Regarding her personal life, Tomalin married her first husband, fellow Cambridge graduate, jounalist Nicholas Tomalin in 1955, and they had three daughters and two sons. He was killed while reporting on the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War in 1973. She worked in publishing and journalism as literary editor of the New Statesman, then The Sunday Times, while bringing up her children. She married the novelist and playwright Michael Frayn in 1993. They live in Petersham, London.
To learn more about her personal life (which seems rather interesting), you could read her autobiography A Life of My Own, which she published in 2018. In it she talks about one son who died in infancy. Another son who was born with spina bifida, and a daughter she lost to suicide. Not to mention her tumultuous first marriage to Nick Tomalin.
But for our group here, we will focus on what she has to tell us about Thomas Hardy’s rather interesting life.
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Not sure of the pace I'll read at but will be wary of spoiler alerts in my posts.
Thanks, Bridget, for leading this read."
I'm so glad you'll be joining in Petra!
I started reading this afternoon. I'm glad that we're taking our time because I'm already reading a bunch of other books!
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Young Emma Hardy
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Older Emma Hardy
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I like how Tomalin chooses this moment in Hardy's life to start this biography. We may remember Hardy for his novels, but he always felt he was a poet first. As he told his friend, Arthur Benson "It's natual to me to write poetry - I was never intended to be a prose-writer . . . still, one had got to live"
So, Tomalin has set herself the task of illustrating for us how Hardy became a writer and a poet.
I also love how Emma is the subject of the Prologue, and Hardy's mother is the subject of chapter one. These two women held great influence in Hardy's life.
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Me too!!!!
I will be starting and will try my best to slow down enough to read only a chapter a week. I think this schedule format is better with a non-fiction than a fiction book where its harder to restrict the # of pages read when you're itching to read more. However, even if I'm successful at that for a while, I'm afraid that my anality might eventually force me to finish it within calendar 2024 in order to be counted within my "pages read in 2024" statistics. It will be a good test of my self-control - like a book diet.
While this may seem like TMI, I posted it so you would understand that if I suddenly fall off from the discussion, it's because "it's me, not you."
Brian, can you look at it as "extra" pages for 2025? LOL.
Thank you Bridget. This will be an interesting discussion. I read this book quite recently but hope to read at least parts of it again. I’m sure I will learn more from it this time by sharing with the group.
Hello everyone, I have my copy so I’ll also be joining in. I have read this before but am more than happy to read again as it was quite a few years ago!
Petra wrote: "Brian, can you look at it as "extra" pages for 2025? LOL."LOL indeed because I already considered that idea and did plan to see if my 2024 total pages is high enough that I'll prefer getting the "extra 300 pages' as a head start for my 2025 total pages.
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LOL indeed because I already considered that idea and did plan to see if my 2024 total pages is high enough that I'll prefe..."
I have these exact same thoughts, especially this time of year!! LOL
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Brian E wrote: "LOL indeed because I already considered that idea and did plan to see if my 2024 total pages is high enough that I'll prefer getting the "extra 300 pages' as a head start for my 2025 total pages...."I do this, too. It's self-imposed but I still like to reach that goal of "books read" with a decent number of "pages read".
Bridget, thank you for the pictures of Emma.She was a nice looking girl. She looks, perhaps, a bit stern and uncompromising...maybe even a bit calculating.
Her elder picture looks more disappointed, yet still stern and perhaps calculating.
It'll be intereresting to get to know her better in the book when she appears.
Bridget wrote: "Tomalin starts the prologue with the death of Hardy's first wife, Emma Hardy. Her death inspired amazing poetry from Hardy. What he called "Poems of 1912-1913". I like how Tomalin chooses this moment in Hardy's life to start this biography......
I also love how Emma is the subject of the Prologue, and Hardy's mother is the subject of chapter one. These two women held great influence in Hardy's life...."
I also liked this starting point for this read. There's a lifetime behind this moment and one's curiosity is peaked.
I know nothing of Hardy's life.
As a first impression, from this Prologue, I get the feeling of remorse and regret stirred up from Emma's passing. It seems somehow a bit unfair to both of their lives. While the opportunity existed, they seemed to go out of each other's ways.....yet once opportunity was gone, he made her an idol, of sorts. Something she couldn't live up to in real life. It seems a bit unfair, somehow, to not see her as the real person she was.....regardless of what that was. (or perhaps it's more realistic to say, that neither of them could live up to each other's expectations? Perhaps neither saw the other as their real selves?)
The poetry is beautiful and haunting, yet....does is show the real person or a desire/wish/dream that can never be real?
It makes me feel curious about Emma and a bit sad that she wasn't appreciated until after her death .....or was she? As I said, I know nothing about Hardy's life.
Petra wrote: "Bridget, thank you for the pictures of Emma.She was a nice looking girl. She looks, perhaps, a bit stern and uncompromising...maybe even a bit calculating.
Her elder picture looks more disappoi..."
It’s a shame that Emma looks so serious in her photos. But most people did then. Photography was usually very formal & people had to pose without moving at all for quite a time while each photo was taken as the smallest movement could ruin the photo. It must have been a daunting experience. I have a couple of family photos taken around 1920. Each one shows a child, very obviously wearing their best clothes & the little girl’s hair is in a very elaborate style. Each child is concentrating hard - I’ve always thought a parent was watching & glaring at them so they didn’t dare to move! It’s a huge contrast with the casual photos we see of modern families.
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Well I "promised" to transfer my comments in the Kings Arms thread here, but it doesn't seem necessary 😊 Like Bridget I too "tend to forget the spoilers as I'm reading biographies. At least most of the time." So even though I've read this one, if for example The Hand of Ethelberta was mentioned, I cannot remember anything about it, and remain in ignorance save for an educated guess that, knowing Thomas Hardy's focus, it is likely to be about a marriage proposal, and not a gothic story about a ghostly disembodied hand, as Wilkie Collins might have written 😆
Back to the point, and I would let it "sink in" if it was a work I know, otherwise not really. But it would be nice if everyone remembers Bridget's important request to let us know if a spoiler is coming up, and whereabouts in which chapter, please, for those of us with better memories than I, and who prefer to read it from the original author ...
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Many of us do not bother with notes at the end, as so often they are just acknowledgements of source material and so on, which are mandatory of an academic work. However, Claire Tomalin's are not like that at all. Sometimes I would wonder why she had put something at the end, rather than in the body of the text, e.g. an interesting anecdote, or information which fit better in the text. Coming to it afterwards, the relevant moment is lost. But my Large Print book is bulky and heavy and I soon got fed up with looking at the end, where some footnotes are merely academic references, but some are of the latter, interesting sort, which I would have been sorry to miss.
My LP copy of Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man is 627 pages long, but surprisingly the main text finishes at page 511. From p. 512 - 615 is all footnotes. Since they add a lot of detail and context to the text, I did indeed read them as I went.
The easiest way I found was to have two bookmarks inserted all the time I was reading it! I think it's the only book where I have done this. All I can think is that Claire Tomalin must have felt her book was too long for the general reader, to have written it this way. It's a judgement call really.
The remaining few pages are bibliography, so for reference only really. Also, this LP copy has no index, which would have added another 80-100 pages or so.
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The simple reason was that adult's teeth were so bad! So some would put a hand over a smile in polite company, or cover it with a handkerchief, (Oscar Wilde used to do this apparently), but in a posed daguerreotype or photograph, a straight face saved their blushes.
We see instances in fiction where the "villain" of the piece is always showing his teeth, such as Mr Carker's teeth in Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son, which seemed to take on a life of their own! 😂 They may well have been false, as there was a growing industry for them, but still it simply "didn't do" to deliberately reveal them.
Bionic Jean wrote: "Adding to Tr1sha's observation about lack of smiles in Victorian photos ... in the early days it was due to long time exposures, as Tr1sha says, but later on it had become a point of etiquette. It ..."That’s fascinating, Jean. I didn’t know about the etiquette of teeth. You have also explained the Dickens’ references to teeth which I remember noticing while reading but not understood the significance.
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I'm so glad you all liked the pictures I posted. I was drawn to the painting of her because of the line from "Woman Much Missed":
"Even to the original air-blue gown!"
To me, it looks like Emma is wearing a light blue gown in the painting, and I wonder if Hardy had that in mind as he composed the poem. Tomalin writes about this line in detail in the Prologue saying that Hardy originally wrote "Even to the original hat and gown", which to me describes the later photograph of her.
Having read quite a few of the "Emma" poems with this group over the last year, I know that Emma and Thomas Hardy had a complicated relationship. His feelings about her death are very strong, and mixed with regret, sadness, and joyful nostalgia.
Petra asks some insightful questions, which I think we should bear in mind as we read. Perhaps we will find the answers in Tomlin's book. Or we may find ourselves still uncertain, as one can never really know from the outside what happens in a marriage. My hope is that we will at least come away with a deeper understanding of their relationship, and how that contributed to the amazing body of work by Hardy.
Jean, thank you for the helfup tip about reading the end notes as we go. I've been doing that, and I agree they are worth reading. At least most of them. Like you suggested, I am using two bookmarks as I read and it's so helpful.
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She was a nice looking girl. She looks, perhaps, a bit stern and uncompromising...maybe even a bit calculating.
Her elder picture looks..."
Trisha, Thanks for sharing the information about your own family pictures from 1920. Like you, I often try to imagine what was happening in the room as the photo was taken. Love your idea about parents glaring at children!
And thank you as well Jean for the information about etiquette surrounding teeth. I had not thought of the stern smiles being a appropriate etiquette for the time. Sadly, I can't think of a Thomas Hardy reference to teeth. But I love your reference to Dickens character, Mr. Carker. His teeth are so memorable!!
The most important thing that I learned from reading the Intro and first chapter "Mother" is how many Hardy family first borns were conceived out of wedlock. It was also interesting to see how much of the 'scarlet letter' aspect of the out-of-wedlock impreganation could be whitewashed by getting the man to marry and help raise the child. This awareness should help me more accurately perceive Hardy's intentions when portraying such situations and the women facing them.The most important thing that I learned from this first week's discussion is that the poor dental hygiene of the time is one of the factors that led subjects in mid-19th century photos to take serious close-mouthed rather than smiling poses. That adds a common-sense practical reason for that sort of pose being the social convention of the time.
I plan to store that bit of information in my brain so I can pull it out someday, years in the future, when I can pull it out as an impressive bit of knowledge during a discussion of 19th Century photos.
Goodreads has been a great source of accumulating these little tidbits of historical cultural information. Thanks, Bionic Jean!
EDIT: Like Jean and Bridget, I also may start reading the end notes during this read. That is something I rarely do as I'm too anxious to read on to be bothered with constantly flipping pages. But the slow reading schedule in this group read both allows me the time and gives me the incentive to do so.
I've installed the extra bookmark and am ready for Chapter 2.
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Great thoughts, Brian. I had exactly the same reaction to this chapter. Hardy's mother, both grandmothers and great-great grandmother ALL were already pregnant at the marriage altar. One has to wonder how much this impacted Hardy's writing, especially of the two novels this group has read Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd.
This chapter also reminded me of an excellent post by Jean when we were reading Far From the Madding Crowd about "Victorian Views of Love and Sexuality: Country People". In it she says:
"It was better if a young couple were married first, but in a Dorset (or other county) working class country community at this time, if a baby was born out of wedlock, then that was part of Nature."
The complete post is worth reading as there is so much information in it. In reading this chapter about Hardy's mother, I'm starting to get a deeper understanding of what Jean was writing in that post. Here's a link:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Finally, I wonder how much Hardy's mother's negative views on marriage affected Hardy's own views of marriage. I think we may found out as we read on.
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For those of you using an audible edition, or an edition without photos, this is the picture of Jemima Hardy that Tomalin included with her book. She looks very stern to me. It's easy to imagine her starting to work at age 13, and basically never stopping. Even in motherhood, raising four children is no short amount of work
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Jemima Hardy with baby Thomas Hardy from The Thomas Hardy Society website
https://www.hardysociety.org/articles...
This is a much softer picture of Jemima
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Chapter 2 – Childhood - takes us through age ten for Hardy. Did you notice how Tomalin often refers to Hardy at “Tommy” or “Tom”. I thought that an effective way to make me think of the accomplished author, Thomas Hardy, as a young child.
I didn’t notice any spoilers in this chapter. There are references to Far From the Madding Crowd and Jude the Obscure, but only because Tomalin mentions two real people in Hardy’s life upon whom he based Bathsheba and Jude. In fact, this is one of the times I was happy I checked the notes at the back of the book. His Aunt Mary weds a man named John Antell, and apparently Hardy based Jude on this uncle. I always find details like this intriguing.
This chapter gave me much to think about. I know I commented that the picture of Jemima Hardy made her look stern, but there was another side to her. What evolves in this chapter is the picture of a loving and attentive family:
”His [Thomas Hardy] grandmother was gentle, his father even-tempered and his mother an able and energetic woman”
He found books through his mother and music through his father. Hardy seems to be a romantic from a very early age, noticing the nature around him, but also noticing his first schoolteacher Mrs. Martin. I loved that his mother dragged him away on a trip to Aunt Martha’s, possibly just to get him away from his infatuation with that teacher. It's also a detail that makes Hardy relatable. I think early crushes on teachers is a fairly common thing, even today.
I thought it interesting that Tomalin talks about Hardy’s relationship to religion at this early moment of his life:
”The boy understood that the clergyman in charge was dressed up for the occasion and was giving a performance”
From reading two novels and a handful of poetry, its obvious that Hardy has a complex relationship with religion. So this line caught my attention.
There are so many poignant moments in this chapter, which ones caught your attention?
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Higher Bockhampton
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from The Victorian Web, Phillip V. Allingham
Bridget wrote: "this is the picture of Jemima Hardy that Tomalin included with her book. She looks very stern to me."I don't get that at all from this picture! I think her eyes look very kind, compassionate, and gentle.
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I don't get that at all from this picture! I think her eyes look very kind, co..."
Its funny how differently people can react to pictures, isn't it?? That's wonderful that you see her as kind and compassionate. Thank you so much for sharing that. Great to have you here, Laurel!
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Oh dear, I'm already behind.... LOL.....Chapter 1 Mother
I found this chapter interesting. The Hardy women were a strong, independent lot but they all fell into the "trap" of pregnancy out of wedlock and their lives were afterwards tied to family & home. Their dreams were gone. This chapter really brought home how restricted the lives of women were if they got pregnant.
That said, the Hardy women were the "lucky" ones because their men married them, giving them a home. As we know from Hardy's novels (and others) this wasn't always the case and a woman could fall into horrible situations without the man.
Onwards to Chapter 2.....
Bionic Jean wrote: "I'm still here, chucking at Brian's "I've installed the extra bookmark and am ready for Chapter 2". .."I've temporarily abandoned the extra bookmark. Not with the referencing the endnotes though. But I quickly got tired of flipping pages as there are at least 4 endnotes each page. And many of them end up being cites to Hardy's autobiography or other source and not worth the flipping time and effort.
So, I went ahead and photocopied the endnotes for the first two Parts and keep them on my side reading table just at the top of my book so I can reference them with a quick eye glance rather than a giant page flip. It's working fine so far.
Chapter 2, Child: The thing that struck me most in Chapter 2 was Tomalin's characterization of the young (9 year-old?) Hardy's infatuation with Julia Martin, his first school principal. Tomalin stated that, "In truth, she was giving him his first love affair." While the elder Hardy's reminiscence in his autobiography does add some credence to this characterization, it still seemed a bit strong to me; more of an attention-getting characterization.
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That must have been quite a sight seeing donkeys in the bluebells! If Aunt Betsy (of David Copperfield fame) had seen them, she would surely have chased them off!! LOL
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Not to worry, Petra!! I'm going to give you all a few days of catch up time. Sorry I haven't posted for a bit. I am out of town at a family wedding for the last four days. If it's alright with all of you, I'd like to post about Chapter 3 "A Bookish Boy" on Tuesday when I'm back home.
In the meantime, here is a short video I found of Thomas Hardy's birthplace "Higher Bockhampton". Its put together by ChrisGrovesUK. I hope you enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGAlr...
Thank you, Bridget - it’s a lovely video.
Beautiful video, Bridget. I especially associate the violins with Hardy and his father.
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This is a very keen observation, Brian. I'm inclined to agree with you. Even though, as you say, this infatuation with Mrs. Martin is backed up by Hardy's autobiography, Tomalin's line "the erotic excitements of school were extended to Sundays" seems a bit over the top to me. It's that word "erotic" that bothers me. That's not an adjective I would think of to describe a nine year old boy's crush on his teacher.
Also, I wanted to add I love your idea of photo copying the endnotes. The flipping back and forth does get tiresome!!
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First off Spoiler Warning: on about the third page of this chapter, Tomalin writes a paragraph comparing Hardy's walk to school at a young age, with the many walks he will create across this same land for his characters in the future. The paragraph starts with "Walking the roads, meeting others on the road . . .". You can skip this whole paragraph, and not miss anything about Hardy's life if you want to avoid possible spoilers.
This chapter starts out in 1850, a crucial time in history. On the one hand, 10 year old Thomas Hardy walks three miles to school each day. Using my own walking pace as a judge, that's probably about an hour each way. On the other hand, England is preparing for the Great Exhibition of 1851, a world fair that would highlight industrial changes that the world had not seen before.
Tomalin remarks on this when she talks about people from the countryside taking the train into London to experience the world fair. Thomas Hardy’s family doesn’t go to the fair, but it must have been talked about by everyone, and made an impression on the young man, because he would write a short story “The Fiddler of the Reels” much later wherein the Great Exhibition plays a big part. (We read that as a group during the summer of 2023, and it's still on our bookshelves.)
For me, this chapter laid the groundwork for issues that would later show up in Thomas Hardy’s poetry and prose. The idea of a bucolic countryside fading away in the onslaught of the modern world started in 1851, with the invasion of the train across the landscape.
Tomalin also talks about ”the gulf between gentry and village was a fact of life from the start”. The Hardys weren’t poor, but they weren’t gentry either, and that limited future professions for young, studious, sensitive Thomas Hardy. His parents, and grandmother come up with the plan for Hardy to be an architect – which dovetails nicely with the Hardy men as builders. But not everyone likes this decision. Tomalin notes that Mr. Shirley, the Vicar of Stinsford didn’t take kindly to it, calling out ”the presumption of members of the lower classes who aspired to join the professions”. Apparently Hardy took this sermon personally, and Tomalin thinks this is the first awakening of Hardy’s hostility towards the Church ”the beginning of his dislike of the narrow-mindedness, snobbery and cant of many of the clergy”.
Over to the rest of you . . . . what were your impressions of Thomas Hardy as a school boy?
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This is the church Mr. Shirely lead as vicar
Some comments on my favorite things from Chapter 3: The Bookish Boy1.THE DAILY WALK TO & FROM SCHOOL
For me, the most important take from this chapter was the effect that young Tom’s daily 6-mile round trip walk to Dorchester, first for school and then for his architecture pupilship, had on the older Thomas’ writing. During the walk Hardy:
- Discovered the nature surrounding him and how to describe it as he “learned to read the noises of the fields and woods, the bark of the fox…the sound of the game birds.”
- Developed an eye for future characters and traits by “walking the roads, meeting others on the road, exchanging news with travelers, being overtaken by riders, carts and carriers.”
- Developed potential future story events such as when he “began to imagine that the foul fiend might jump on him out of a tree.”
While in his later years, Hardy looked back on his school years with dislike, he should have looked fondly upon the two hours a day spent going to and from school, as they were essential in making him the great writer he became. The walks formed a great source for Hardy’s wonderful descriptive talents, both of nature and people, which make his works so engaging, enriching, and enjoyable.
2. THE GREAT EXHIBITION
I was reminded of the importance of this event, something I had not heard of until it became an important plot point in the TV series Victoria. While Hardy never got to attend it that may have made its existence even more important to him as it became a plot element in his short story The Fiddler of the Reels which I believe this group recently read. I had read it several years ago and had forgotten which Hardy short story had talked about the Great Exhibition until reminded of which one in an endnote, proving the value of reading the endnotes. 😊
3. DAIRYMAID
The revelation that Dairymaid Marian, Tess’s friend, was based on a favored “pink and plump” older pupil of Tom's made me smile.
4. FIDDLER
I enjoyed reading and about and picturing Tom’s playing fiddle with his uncle James on cello at weddings and other celebrations.
5. HANGING
It was interesting to read about Tom’s emotional experience watching the hanging of Martha Browne and its likely influence on Hardy’s choice to not describe (view spoiler)
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1.THE DAILY WALK TO & FROM SCHOOL
For me, the most important take from this chapter was the effect that young Tom’s daily 6-mil..."
Brian, Thank you so much for all your comments. I love the way you've listed your thoughts on Chapter 3. I'm sorry it's taken me 4 days to respond to your post. The changes GR made with not emailing notices has really thrown me off.
I agree with you that Hardy's walking to and from school and the architect internship made the biggest impression on me. Hardy had so much solitary, independent time; and it really shows up in everything he writes later.
I haven't watched the series Victoria, but its on my list of things to watch (one of these days ;-). But yes, the Great Exhibition is a huge event in history. I keep running across it in various books. I even ran across it in Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. I can't remember all the details now, but I remember Harari writing that 1850 was a big turning point for mankind.
The part about Martha Browne's hanging at the end of the chapter was very poignant, as you mentioned. It was interesting to me that Tomlin also mentioned Dickens' views on hangings.
Works of Thomas Hardy
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This is the thread to discuss Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy
This reading will begin September 8th and run thru December 8th, possibly a little longer if needed. It will be led by Bridget.
LINKS TO CHAPTER DISCUSSIONS
PART ONE 1840-1867
Prologue and Chapter One "Mother"
Chapter Two "Childhood"
Chapter Three "The Bookish Boy
Chapter Four "Friends and Brothers"
Chapter Five "The Londoner"
PART TWO 1867-1874
Chapter Six "A Clever Lad's Dream"
Chapter Seven "Lyonnesse"
Chapter Eight "The True Vocation"
Chapter Nine "Easy to Die"
Chapter Ten "A Short Visit to the Continent"
PART THREE 1875-1909
Chapter Eleven "Dreaming the Heath"
Chapter Twelve "Hardy Joins a Club"
Chapter Thirteen "The Tower"
Chapter Fourteen "The Conformers"
Chapter Fifteen "The Blighted Star"
Chapter Sixten "Tom and Em"
Chapter Seventeen "The Terra-Cotta Dress
Chapter Eighteen "A Witch and a Wife"
Chapter Nineteen "Cat, Bird, Eagle, Sphinx
PART FOUR: 1905-1928
Chapter Twenty "Convergence"
Chapter Twenty-One "Satires of Circumstance"
Chapter Twenty-Two "A Friend from Cambridge"
Chapter Twenty-Three "The Wizard"
Chapter Twenty-Four "Winter Words"
EPILOGUE