Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life

Internationally renowned as the author of Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, Wessex Poems and Other Verses, and Winter Words, Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) nonetheless remains an elusive and enigmatic figure. His own diligent efforts to guard his privacy—making bonfires of his papers, ghost-writing his own biography to be published after his death—have obscured many aspects of the author’s personal life. This book, the first major biography of Hardy in decades, draws on new and extensive archival research to present a more complex picture of Hardy than has been possible to date.
Author Ralph Pite investigates the validity of long-accepted views of the author: Was his early life devoted to his preparation for becoming a writer? Did his first wife, Emma, trick him into an unwanted marriage? Was his poetry far dearer to his heart than the novels? And was Florence, his second wife, as conflicted and passionate as caricatures have suggested? Pite examines the relationships and contexts that shaped Hardy most—the women in his life, his friends and mentors, social and family pressures, career structures of his day, the Devonshire landscape—and offers new insight into the man who, until now, was hidden behind an opaque public image he helped to create.

Ralph Pite is professor of English at Cardiff University, Wales. His previous books include The Circle of Our Vision: Dante’s Presence in English Romantic Poetry, and Hardy’s Geography: Wessex and the Regional Novel.