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.
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)...
LH
met Thomas Hardy
, who was an admirer of her literary work.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Friends, Associates
Rhoda Broughton
RB
's vitality, sincerity, and pungent wit gained her the friendship of some of the most notable people of her day.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.
Her wide circle of friends and acquaintances included Henry James
(the two became extremely...
Health
May Sinclair
As early as October 1908 MS
was told that she had strained her heart by exercise (her bicycling trip with Thomas Hardy
) and ought to be careful.
Raitt, Suzanne. May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian. Clarendon Press.
113
In view of her family's history...
Intertextuality and Influence
Margiad Evans
As a story-teller Evans has a sure grasp, making every tiny detail contribute to an effect which is understated but emotionally powerful. The named character in Miss Potts and Music is largely a peg for...
Intertextuality and Influence
Sarah Waters
Nance is almost a colourless character apart from her capacity for passion. (In an apparently non-literary book, a tradition of steamy fiction is evoked when her desire to make Kitty sorry makes her think of...
Intertextuality and Influence
Margiad Evans
Several poems in A Candle Ahead invoke ME
's teachers: Milton
, Thomas Traherne
, Walter de la Mare
, and Thomas Hardy
, the theme of whose The Well-Beloved is that of her closing...
Intertextuality and Influence
Violet Hunt
Acquainted with Andrew Lang
through her mother
's social circle, VH
shaped her own poetry under his influence. Partly because of Lang's connections, her romantic poem The Death of the Shameful Knight was published in...
Intertextuality and Influence
Stella Gibbons
Such earthy regionalists—who include Thomas Hardy
and D. H. Lawrence
, as well as Webb
and Kaye-Smith
—become the butt of SG
's satire in Cold Comfort Farm.
Oliver, Reggie. Out of the Woodshed: A Portrait of Stella Gibbons. Bloomsbury.
VH
was fascinated by the mysterious throughout her life. As a small girl, she loved to listen to her mother talk about the White Lady, a spirit haunting the kitchen of Margaret Hunt
's...
Intertextuality and Influence
Alice Munro
Carried Away begins with two lonely young people building an unlikely relationship by letter. Louisa, town librarian of Carstairs, Ontario, in 1917, lives in a hotel and eats her solitary meal each day with...
Intertextuality and Influence
P. D. James
As the work opens, Cordelia, slight of body, determined of will, savvy of mind
Gidez, Richard. P. D. James. Twayne.
56
(who is to reappear later in another book, The Skull Beneath the Skin), is running a seedy detective agency...