Anatine
Thomas Hardy Profile

Thomas Hardy
Keynotes

  Born:  Upper Bockhampton, Dorset, 2nd June 1840.

  Died:  Dorchester, Dorset, 11th January 1928.

  English novelist and poet.

  Born in Dorset, the son of Thomas Hardy, a master mason and builder, and Jemima (née Hann), he was the eldest of four children.

  He left school in 1856 and became a pupil of John Hicks, an architect and church restorer based in Dorchester.

  In 1862 he moved to London to work with architect Arthur Blomfield as a 'Gothic draftsman'.

  He returned to Dorset in 1867 due to poor health, and worked for John Hicks again.

  Much of Hardy's work is set in his native Wessex and he made use of his knowledge of the area in his descriptions of the rural scenery and way of life.

  His articulate descriptive passages are carefully blended with the local dialect of the characters.

  Elements of Greek tragedy are evident in his novels where he made a conscious effort to relate them to the world as he knew it.

  In March 1870 he met Emma Lavinia Gifford, and they married in August 1874.

  He wrote his first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, during 1867 - 68, but it was rejected by two publishers who thought it to be too socialistic and satirical.  His first published novel was Desperate Remedies, in 1871.

  A Pair of Blue Eyes was published in serial form in Tinsley's Magazine during 1872 - 73.  Far from the Madding Crowd was also published in serial form, and appeared in Cornhill Magazine during 1874.

  The moral outcry which followed the publication of Jude the Obscure in 1895 disheartened him to the extent that he never wrote another novel, preferring to concentrate on his poetry instead.

  His first wife, Emma, died in 1912, and in 1914 he married his secretary, Florence Emily Dugdale, who later wrote his biography.

  He died in Dorchester in 1928.  His ashes were placed in Westminster Abbey, and his heart buried in the church at Stinsford, near his birthplace in Dorset.

Works with publication dates:

Desperate Remedies (1871)

Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)

A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)

Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)

The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)

The Return of the Native (1878)

The Trumpet-Major (1880)

A Laodicean (1881)

Two on a Tower (1882)

The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)

The Woodlanders (1887)

Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)

The Well-Beloved (1892)

Jude the Obscure (1895)

Wessex Poems (1898)

Poems of the Past and the Present (1901)

The Dynasts (1903 - 08)

[Short stories and Poetry]
 

 

Quotes

"To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement."

Far from the Madding Crowd

"Life's Little Ironies"

[Title of a collection of stories]

"Ethelberta breathed out a sort of exclamation, not right out, but stealthily, like a parson's damn."

The Hand of Ethelberta

"... The long, laborious road, dry, empty, and white.  It was quite open to the heath on each side, and bisected that vast dark surface like the parting-line on a head of black hair, diminishing and bending away on the furthest horizon."

The Return of the Native

"Silent?  Ah, he is silent!  He can keep his silence well.  That man's silence is a wonderful thing to listen to."

Under the Greenwood Tree

"A local cult, called Christianity."

The Dynasts

"We two kept house, the Past and I."

The Ghost of the Past

"Only a man harrowing clods,
In a slow silent walk,
With an old horse that stumbles and nods,
Half asleep as they stalk."

In the Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'

Links

Guardian Unlimited - Thomas Hardy
http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-81,00.html

Spartacus - Thomas Hardy
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jhardy.htm

Mantex - Thomas Hardy
http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/aa810/hardy-02.htm

The Millennium Library - Thomas Hardy
http://www.millenniumlibrary.co.uk/millib/reference/
notes.php?entry=Thomas+Hardy&fromdb=2

Project Gutenberg - Thomas Hardy
http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/authors/
hardy__thomas__1840-1928.html

BBCi Books - Thomas Hardy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/author/hardy/

Thomas Hardy Online
http://www.webuser.com/hardy/

The Victorian Web - Thomas Hardy
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/hardyov.html

1UpInfo - Thomas Hardy
http://www.1upinfo.com/encyclopedia/H/Hardy-Th.html

Magdalene College, Cambridge - Thomas Hardy
http://www.magdalenecambridge.com/biog/hardy.html

A Chronology of Thomas Hardy's Collected Short Stories
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/english/chronol.htm

A selection of books by Thomas Hardy available from W.H. Smith:
 

Desperate Remedies  (paperback)

Under the Greenwood Tree  (paperback)

A Pair of Blue Eyes  (paperback)

Far from the Madding Crowd  (hardback)

The Hand of Ethelberta  (paperback)

The Return of the Native  (paperback)

The Return of the Native  (hardback)

The Trumpet-Major  (paperback)

A Laodicean, Or the Castle of the De Stancys

Two on a Tower  (paperback)

Two on a Tower  (hardback)

The Mayor of Casterbridge  (paperback)

The Mayor of Casterbridge  (hardback)

The Woodlanders  (paperback)

The Woodlanders  (hardback)

Tess of the D'Urbervilles  (paperback)

Tess of the D'Urbervilles  (hardback)

The Well-beloved  (paperback)

Jude the Obscure  (paperback)

Jude the Obscure  (hardback)

Life's Little Ironies  (paperback)

Selected Poems  (paperback)

Wessex Tales  (paperback)

Wessex Poems (1898)  (hardback)

Thomas Hardy Boxed Set: Far from the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the D'Urbervilles  (hardback)

Thomas Hardy: the Complete Poems  (hardback)

Variorum Edition of the Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy  (hardback)

Works of Thomas Hardy With Prefaces and Notes  (hardback)