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.
This book produced the first of PF
's shortlistings for the Booker prize.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Valentine Cunningham
in the Times Literary Supplement registered enjoyment of the rich repertoire of odd characters and the Hardy
-like gothic...
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.
Kersley, Gillian. Darling Madame: Sarah Grand and Devoted Friend. Virago Press.
118-19
Textual Production
Sarah Grand
An entire literary-social movement evolved alongside SG
's writings about the New Woman. New Woman fiction, amounting to a new genre, had already been produced by George Egerton
in 1893, and was produced by Iota (Kathleen Caffyn)
Textual Features
Laetitia-Matilda Hawkins
With this novel LMH
perfected her sagely meditative narratorial voice (which looks forward to George Eliot
and Thomas Hardy
). She chose a plot of many characters and complicated interlocking machinations. Her initially unappealing heroine...
Textual Production
Susan Hill
SH
edited a selection of Thomas Hardy
for Penguin
in 1979: The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales; it includes her introduction and notes. She has written new introductions for two novels by F. M. Mayor
Travel
Susan Hill
Meanwhile, she established a habit of long visits: first to a country cottage in Dorset and then to a rented house at Aldeburgh in Suffolk. These were places used not for social or emotional...
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
Intertextuality and Influence
John Oliver Hobbes
Pearl Richards (later JOH
) read widely as a child and adolescent, and her parents' liberal views (and considerable fortune) meant that she could pursue her tastes in both the lending libraries and the less...
Textual Features
John Oliver Hobbes
A number of critics note similarities between Hobbes's novel and Thomas Hardy
's Jude the Obscure. It is possible that the two friends discussed their novels, both of which began serial publication in December...
Literary responses
John Oliver Hobbes
More recently, Margaret Maison
characterised The School For Saints as a strange mixture of Disraeli
, Hardy
, Ouida
, and Meredith
. . . and there are even echoes of the old bigamy novels...
Friends, Associates
Laurence Hope
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/.
Literary responses
Laurence Hope
Thomas Hardy
in the Athenæum wrote that Stars of the Desert had a greater mastery of rhythm . . . and a firmer intellectual grasp than The Garden of Káma, with no loss of...
Reception
Laurence Hope
Hope's work was popular, and was recognised by a number of her contemporaries, including Thomas Hardy
, Arthur Symons
, James Elroy Flecker
, and Edith Thomas
. After her death she garnered, along with...