Thomas Hardy : The Time-Torn Man

by Tomalin, Claire (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780143112877
• ISBN10: 0143112872
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-29
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Summary

Thomas Hardy was one of the great Victorian novelists and one of the great twentieth-century poets. This is the first of the many paradoxes he presents. A believer and an unbeliever, a socialist and a snob, an unhappy husband and a desolate widower, Hardy was the son of a village builder who challenged the sexual and religious conventions of his time yet ultimately won the affection and support of the English aristocracy. In this acclaimed new biography, one of today's preeminent literary biographers reveals a figure as rich and complex as his tremendous legacy. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Claire Tomalin is the author of seven highly acclaimed biographies, including the 2002 Whitbread Book of the Year, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vii
List of Illustrations	p. xi
Map: showing the area around Higher Bockhampton and Max Gate	p. xiv
Prologue	p. xvii
1840-1867
Mother	p. 3
Child	p. 18
The Bookish Boy	p. 31
Friends and Brothers	p. 46
The Londoner	p. 63
1867-1874
The Clever Lad's Dream	p. 87
Lyonnesse	p. 99
The True Vocation	p. 112
Easy to Die	p. 126
A Short Visit to the Continent	p. 141
1875-1905
Dreaming the Heath	p. 163
Hardy Joins a Club	p. 175
The Tower	p. 188
The Conformers	p. 200
The Blighted Star	p. 218
Tom and Em	p. 233
The Terra-cotta Dress	p. 245
A Witch and a Wife	p. 263
Cat, Bird, Eagle, Sphinx	p. 279
1905-1928
Convergence	p. 297
Satires of Circumstance	p. 312
A Friend from Cambridge	p. 326
The Wizard	p. 339
Winter Words	p. 358
Epilogue	p. 370
List of Abbreviations	p. 381
Notes	p. 383
Bibliography	p. 453
Text and Illustration Permissions	p. 462
Index	p. 465
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