Based on contemporary notes, letters, diaries, and biographical memoranda, as well as from oral information in conversations extending over many years.
This book addresses the questions 'What did Thomas Hardy think about history and how did this enter into his writings?' Scholars have sought answers in 'revolutionary', 'gender', 'postcolonial' and 'millennial' criticism, but these are found to be unsatisfactory. Fred Reid is a historian who seeks answers by setting Hardy more fully in the discourses of philosophical history and the domestic and international affairs of Britain. He shows how Hardy worked out, from the late 1850s, his own 'meliorist' philosophy of history and how it is inscribed in his fiction. Rooted in the idea of cyclical history as propounded by the Liberal Anglican historians, it was adapted after his loss of faith through reading the works of Auguste Comte, George Drysdale and John Stuart Mill and used to defend the right of individuals to break with the Victorian sexual code and make their own 'experiments in living'.
One of the literary world's great deceptions was perpetrated when Thomas Hardy wrote his Life in secret for publication after his death as an official biography. Since the true circumstances of its composition have been known The Early Life and Later Years of Thomas Hardy, published over the name of Florence Emily Hardy, has frequently been referred to as Hardy's autobiography. But this is not the whole truth: Florence altered much of what Hardy meant to appear in his 'biography'. Through careful examination of pre- publication texts, Michael Millgate has retrieved the text as it stood at the time of Hardy's final revision. For the first time The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy can be read as a true work of autobiography - an addition to the Hardy canon.
Thomas Hardy's fiction has had a remarkably strong appeal for general readers for decades, and his poetry has been acclaimed as among the most influential of the twentieth century. His work still creates passionate advocacy and opposition. The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy is an essential introduction to this most enigmatic of writers. These commissioned essays from an international team of contributors comprises a general overview of all Hardy' s work and specific demonstrations of Hardy's ideas and literary skills. Individual essays explore Hardy's biography, aesthetics, his famous attachment to Wessex, and the impact on his work of developments in science, religion and philosophy in the late nineteenth century. Hardy's writing is also analysed against developments in contemporary critical theory and issues such as sexuality and gender. The volume also contains a detailed chronology of Hardy's life and publications, and a guide to further reading.
Explains the social reasons for Thomas Hardy's consistent pessimism expressed in all his major works. The author contends that this came from the failure of bourgeois society to correct the anachronisms in the social machinery of the day.
'She bared her poor curst arm' A jealous lover's curse and an ingenious party trick feature in these two suspenseful stories set in Hardy's imaginary Wessex. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.
Through original essays from a distinguished team of international scholars and Hardy specialists, A Companion to Thomas Hardy provides a unique, one-volume resource, which encompasses all aspects of Hardy's major novels, short stories, and poetry Informed by the latest in scholarly, critical, and theoretical debates from some of the world's leading Hardy scholars Reveals groundbreaking insights through examinations of Hardy’s major novels, short stories, poetry, and drama Explores Hardy's work in the context of the major intellectual and socio-cultural currents of his time and assesses his legacy for subsequent writers