ABSTRACT

Thomas Hardy Remembered assembles some 150 annotated interviews and recollections of Hardy, most of which are being reprinted for the first time. They range from close personal reflections by old friends such as Sir George Douglas, J.M. Barrie, and Edmund Gosse, to fleeting glimpses by strangers who saw Hardy at a London party or at his club. Martin Ray has selected items having the greatest literary or biographical significance, and annotated them with meticulous accuracy and a keen eye for the telling detail. As a result, the volume will be an invaluable resource to scholars who are interested not only in what concerned Hardy personally and professionally, but also in how he was perceived by others. Having these items collected in one volume reveals Hardy's contemporaneous opinions about his own writings and also makes it possible to trace the marked recurrence, over time, of certain preoccupations: ancient families, Hardy's hostility to reviewers, architecture, Roman relics, Wessex folklore and dialect, animal welfare, Napoleon, and hangings. With regard to his literary career, a portrait emerges of Hardy as the scrupulous professional, properly aware of his commercial rights, while at the same time appearing, to some who met him, unconscious of his own genius.

chapter |4 pages

Introduction

part |2 pages

Part One Interviews

part |2 pages

PART TWO HARDY’S BOYHOOD

part |2 pages

Part Three Courtship

part |2 pages

PART FOUR IN THE EIGHTIES

chapter |1 pages

‘Two Pleasant Friends’

chapter |4 pages

Hardy at Abbotsford

chapter |1 pages

Hardy’s New Home

chapter |6 pages

Hardy at Max Gate

chapter |1 pages

Hardy and William Barnes

chapter |1 pages

‘Small and Unassuming’

chapter |1 pages

R.L.S

part |2 pages

Part Five The Nineties

chapter |2 pages

Thomas Hardy

chapter |2 pages

Joseph Chamberlain and Genealogy

chapter |1 pages

Authors and I – Charles Lewis Hind

chapter |1 pages

Hardy Blights Trees

chapter |1 pages

Hardy and Rudyard Kipling

part |2 pages

Part Six 1900-1910

chapter |1 pages

A Backward Glance – Edith Wharton

chapter |1 pages

‘Not at Home’

chapter |1 pages

Hardy and Henry James

chapter |1 pages

A Gravestone – James Milne

chapter |1 pages

‘Do You Tell Them Your Ideas?’

chapter |1 pages

Cakes and Ale

chapter |1 pages

‘I’m Glad He’s So Nice’

chapter |3 pages

Hardy and Oscar Wilde

chapter |1 pages

Tea with Thomas Hardy

part |2 pages

Part Seven 1911-1917

chapter |1 pages

Hardy and W.B. Yeats

chapter |2 pages

Hardy’s Gold Medal

chapter |2 pages

Emma’s Last Party

chapter |2 pages

Thomas Hardy at Home

chapter |2 pages

Some Personal Recollections

chapter |2 pages

Hardy at Cambridge

chapter |3 pages

The Great War – Arnold Bennett

part |2 pages

Part Eight 'Life's Decline': 1918-1920

chapter |12 pages

Days with Thomas Hardy – Elliott Felkin

chapter |4 pages

Hardy’s First Novel

chapter |1 pages

Youth and Age – Katharine Adams

chapter |2 pages

Walks and Talks with Thomas Hardy

chapter |1 pages

Hardy’s Wit and Wisdom

chapter |2 pages

Hardy and Drama

part |2 pages

Part Nine 'I Looked Back': 1921-1925

chapter |4 pages

Thomas Hardy at Max Gate

chapter |1 pages

Hardy and Katherine Mansfield

chapter |5 pages

The Great Victorian – Edward Blunden

chapter |1 pages

Does T.H. Enjoy Life?

chapter |1 pages

Dear Old Thomas Hardy

chapter |6 pages

Thomas Hardy’s Birthplace

chapter |1 pages

Florence was his Inspiration

chapter |1 pages

Rehearsing Tess – Florence Hardy

chapter |2 pages

J.M. Barrie Remembers

chapter |1 pages

Hardy’s Morning Walk

chapter |1 pages

Memorabilia

part |2 pages

PART ELEVEN ‘A DEATH-DAY RECALLED’

chapter |1 pages

Kindly Charm

chapter |1 pages

Hardy’s Ashes