ABSTRACT
Frank A. Hedgcock Poetry was his first love and, had it been possible, he would have remained faithful to her all his life; but he had to earn his living and to do that in literature meant writing novels. I asked whether he found the chosen alternative very irksome and the writing of stories very laborious. No, he answered; certainly not in his early years. Under the Greenwood Tree had been written in a few weeks and had come almost spontaneously; and even Far from the Madding Crowd, a much longer and more complicated piece of work, had not cost him much effort. The scene of the storm, when Gabriel Oak thatched the cornricks (this was in answer to a question of mine) had been written in a night – a night of thunder and lightning, like that described in the book. [...]
He always recalled with a shudder the writing of A Laodicean. Critics had said it was one of his weakest works; it was a miracle it was ever completed. Yes, he always made a scheme before he started but left it fluid, so as to be able to insert any developments which suggested themselves. A novel written exactly to plan would be too stiff. He felt that some of his books, e.g., The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess were well constructed; but from that point of view the best examples were in his short stories (p. 224).
