Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Thomas Hardy
-
Standard Name: Hardy, Thomas
TH
was a poet by vocation and became a novelist by profession. The Wessex of his novels has made him arguably a regional novelist. As well as a prolific output in both these forms, he published a unique verse epic bringing together human and supernatural characters, short fiction, a volume for children, and two volumes of actual autobiography masquerading as a biography by his second wife. Since his career as a publishing novelist ran from the 1870s to the 1890s, and his first volume of poetry post-dated his final novel, he has been seen as a Victorian novelist but a mostly twentieth-century poet. This description, however, is not true to the facts of composition. He wrote poetry from early in his life, but did not publish it in volume form until his final novel.
VW
and Leonard travelled to Dorchester to have tea at Max Gate with Thomas
and Florence Hardy
. Woolf met Hardy just this once, though, as Hermione Lee remarks, she had been reading and writing...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Mew
CM
visited Thomas Hardy
at his home; he requested the meeting after reading and admiring her poetry.
Monro, Alida, and Charlotte Mew. “Charlotte Mew—A Memoir”. Collected Poems of Charlotte Mew, Gerald Duckworth, p. vii - xx.
She made many friends and acquaintances both as a figure in society and as an author. These included literary people such as George Meredith
, Thomas Hardy
, Punch editor Owen Seaman
, William Archer
ATR
lived with the Stephens
after their marriage, and while there became a friend of such literary figures as George Meredith
, Henry James
(who described her after an early encounter as exquisitely irrational)...
Others with whom she shared this or that memorable experience were the Meynells (Wilfrid
, Alice
, and Viola
), Clarence Rook
and his wife, and Henry W. Nevinson
, whom she eventually married...
Friends, Associates
Rosamund Marriott Watson
She was introduced to writer Thomas Hardy
some time in 1889. They had a flirtation (both in person and by letter) which left Hardy the disappointed partner,
Leighton, Angela, and Margaret Reynolds, editors. Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology. Blackwell.