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Thomas Hardy

3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 · rating details · 412 ratings · 44 reviews

Whitbread Award winner Claire Tomalin's seminal biography of the enigmatic novelist and poet Thomas Hardy.

Today Thomas Hardy is best known for creating the great Wessex landscape as the backdrop to his rural stories, starting with Far from the Madding Crowd, and making them classics. But his true legacy is that of a progressive thinker. When he published Tess of the d'Ur...more Whitbread Award winner Claire Tomalin's seminal biography of the enigmatic novelist and poet Thomas Hardy.

Today Thomas Hardy is best known for creating the great Wessex landscape as the backdrop to his rural stories, starting with Far from the Madding Crowd, and making them classics. But his true legacy is that of a progressive thinker. When he published Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure late in his career, Hardy explored a very different world than that of his rural tales, one in which the plight of lower classes and women take center stage while the higher classes are damned. Ironically, though, Hardy remained cloaked in the arms of this very upper class during the publication of these books, acting at all times in complete convention with the rules of society. Was he using his books to express himself in a way he felt unable to do in the company he kept, or did he know sensationalism would sell? Award-winning author Claire Tomalin expertly reconstructs the life that led Hardy to maintain conventionality and write revolution.

Born in Dorset in 1840, Hardy came of age in rather meager circumstances. At sixteen, he left home for London and slowly worked his way through many rejections to become a published writer. Despite his mother's admonitions to never marry, he wed Emma Lavinia Gifford in 1874 and, even though he fell easily in love, stayed true to her till her death in 1912. He frequently toured London society, but few felt they knew the true Hardy, and it is this very core of self that Tomalin elegantly brings us to know so completely.

Hardy's work consistently challenged sexual and religious conventions in a way that few other books of his time did. Though his personal modesty and kindness allowed some to underestimate him or even to pity him, they did not prevent him from taking on the central themes of human experience-time, memory, loss, love, fear, grief, anger, uncertainty, death. And it was exactly his quiet life, full of the small, personal dramas of family quarrels, rivalries, and at times, despair, that infuses his works with the rich detail that sets them apart as masterpieces. In this engrossing biography, Tomalin skillfully identifies the inner demons and the outer mores that drove Hardy and presents a rich and complex portrait of one of the greatest figures in English literature.(less)

Hardcover, 512 pages

Published January 18th 2007 by Penguin Press HC, The (first published January 1st 2006)

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Nov 14, 2009 karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

when thomas hardy died, he wanted to be buried in stinsford. pretty much everyone else wanted him to be buried in westminster abbey. so a compromise - they take out his heart and put it in a tin and bury that in stinsford and the rest of him is to be cremated and buried in westminster abbey. but then a cat comes along and eats the heart so they have to kill the cat and bury that instead.

that, my friends, is a 'pastoral legend' that i grew up believing and this book killed for me. the whole cat...more when thomas hardy died, he wanted to be buried in stinsford. pretty much everyone else wanted him to be buried in westminster abbey. so a compromise - they take out his heart and put it in a tin and bury that in stinsford and the rest of him is to be cremated and buried in westminster abbey. but then a cat comes along and eats the heart so they have to kill the cat and bury that instead.

that, my friends, is a 'pastoral legend' that i grew up believing and this book killed for me. the whole cat part is untrue, the dual-burial is very true. but i think that story emerged because thomas hardys life was pretty...boring. his creative life and output is amazing, but to achieve that he mostly had to sit around, writing. no complicated entanglements, no flipping over the christmas table, no drugged-out suicide attempts. thomas hardy stayed in an unsuitable marriage for years upon years, quietly writing and grasping for fame and social betterment. staid and english. tea and dogs. the best hardy quote from the book is his own: "there is not that regular gradation among womankind that there is among men. you may meet with 999 exactly alike, and then the thousandth - not a little better, but far above them. practically therefore, it is useless for a man to seek after this thousandth to make her his". sheesh. this concept of settling for average rather than going out and chasing that mythical thousandth woman may have been what led to his unhappy marriage. but it did lead him to create some of the more memorable women in fiction. (although i will never care about tess, and she was apparently his favorite) as for the rest of it, i didnt really know that much about hardy, having only read his poems and novels. it is a good book to get the chronology straight, it explains some of the thematic progressions. and ms. tomalin has this great quote (which i know alfonso will disagree with): "reading jude is like being hit in the face over and over again." i could not have said it any better myself. it is truly unfortunate that the critical reaction to jude made him give up writing novels, because i would have loved to have seen what would have been his next stage in envelope-pushing. but this bio is a pretty good book, just not the most exciting thing i have ever read.

and yes, i am one of those thousandth women... (less)

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Dec 26, 2012 ·Karen· rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mttbr-2012, biography-memoir, non-fiction, 19th-century

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
-I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me.

In one of the BBC's Book Club programmes Claire Tomalin disarmingly tells how she was more or less forced by her publisher to come up with a decent by-line to her biography of Thomas Hardy, which she had hoped to call, in all simpl...more You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
-I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me.

In one of the BBC's Book Club programmes Claire Tomalin disarmingly tells how she was more or less forced by her publisher to come up with a decent by-line to her biography of Thomas Hardy, which she had hoped to call, in all simplicity, Thomas Hardy. And how she scoured, once more, the poems, desperately hoping for an idea, any idea. 'Time-torn', taken from his poem A Broken Appointment, how about that? Float that with the editor, does he like it? He did indeed, and by one of those felicitous fancies of fate, it resonates beautifully with her wonderfully nuanced portrayal of this figure.

Time torn: a man who was born at the beginning of the Victorian age, in 1840, just three years after Victoria became queen, and who lived on until the roaring twenties, friend of Virginia Woolf and T.E. Lawrence. Torn, too, by the vagaries of rigid class lines, by his own sense of guilt over his treatment of Emma, by the contrasting demands of solid country gentility and the glamour of London literary life, by the commercial necessity of writing novels in order to finance his life as a poet. This was a man who travelled an even longer, stonier path than Dickens, despite the latter's stint in the blacking factory. Dickens at least was born into a fairly genteel, lower middle class family, even if they had their financial ups and downs. Hardy, on the other hand, was the son of a builder, at a time when the divide between labourer and even the lowest middle class gentility was as wide as it ever had been at any time before or since. Small and weak when born, his very survival on earth seems a miracle. What he went on to achieve is more miraculous still, but Tomalin holds a steady tiller. She is no dewy-eyed breathless enthusiast, even if she obviously loves Hardy's work and very much likes the man too. She keeps her ship on an even keel by a cautious layering of differing views, carefully flagging her speculative conclusions with phrases like 'It makes you wonder if...'
Does that make Tomalin sound finicky and over-zealous in her attention to detail? I hope not, for even if, as she freely admits herself, the early chapters contain rather too many names and facts, she has written an amazingly compelling account of what on the outside looks like a rather dull and ordinary existence, living with his wife and his dog and writing novels that grew more and more bleak, and then, when he had earned enough money and opprobrium, turning to poetry. And Tomalin's warmth and generosity are not reserved only for the man himself: she is, if anything, even more generous towards the women who tried to soothe that time-torn man. You have to feel sorry for Emma: headstrong and lively and spirited. And damn it, she had to be. She had to defy her parents, break with her family forever in order to marry this builder's son, and yet at the same time bear the humiliating dismay of his family too, who considered that she brought nothing to the marriage at all; not youth, nor beauty, nor money and not enough intellect. And what could a headstrong, spirited young woman do with herself in a Victorian marriage? What role for her? She must have hoped to share in Thomas's creative life, for she was denied any field of action of her own. No wonder she turned a little odd and eccentric, cooped up at home, in a social no-man's land, with a husband who shut himself away in order to write them out of poverty.
For once, the puff on the back can be wholeheartedly endorsed: 'Another triumph..' '..an object lesson in how to write a life...' 'It is a moving story and Tomalin tells it as vividly, with as great a fund of sympathy and sense, as can be imagined.' Who am I to disagree with James Wood? Nor would I want to. (less)

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Feb 26, 2008 micah rated it 2 of 5 stars

I don't know why I thought Thomas Hardy's life would be exciting and inspiring, but I did, and according to this lady, it sure wasn't. I guess I shouldn't shoot the messenger but if you like Hardy's books, find a balance and symmetry to them that's deeply pleasing and ache at the beauty of his descriptions you will not want to know that he married a woman he grew to hate and ignore, who herself went crazy and died, after which he became consumed with guilt and spent the rest of his life writing...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Claire Tomalin is fast becoming the epitome of the biographer. Her books are praised far and wide and this one regarding the wonderful Thomas Hardy is no exception. She separates the man from his writing very well but also emphasises the deep connection Hardy has to his creations and the biographical nature of some of the characters and plots surrounding them.

Hardy did not have the fortunate birth of some of his literary contemporaries and was always something of an outsider by nature. Slightly...more Claire Tomalin is fast becoming the epitome of the biographer. Her books are praised far and wide and this one regarding the wonderful Thomas Hardy is no exception. She separates the man from his writing very well but also emphasises the deep connection Hardy has to his creations and the biographical nature of some of the characters and plots surrounding them.

Hardy did not have the fortunate birth of some of his literary contemporaries and was always something of an outsider by nature. Slightly jealous of others noble birth he continually aspired to the gentlemanly nature of the Victorian season dweller. Yet, also he maintained a curious distance to some of the mopre extravagant examples of rich notoriety and kept a dangerous radical streak that he kept hidden from upper-class society until they required release through the wonderful characters in his novels.

He found it difficult to get published initially as many authors do, and always considered himself more of a poet writing fiction professionally. Indeed, the level to which he bowdlerised much of his writing shows us that he wasn’t as protective of his art as some authors can be. Due to the graphic and, at the time, shocking nature of some of the set pieces within his books he would often be required to change endings and plot lines at various points throughout the publication process. His books were serialised first in periodicals of the time, so the changes were not practically difficult but somewhere the intolerant nature of the literary elite must have galled Hardy greatly.

Later in his life, after the publication and reaction to Jude The Obscure Hardy settled in to his poetry and a more solitary existence, reserving his public side for dignitaries and visitors. His troubled wife bore much with regards to his mood swings and in a storyline worthy of one of the man’s novels, Hardy only really appreciated Emma once she had died.

He devoted much time after her death, despite remarrying, on the memory of his late wife writing many, many poems about their life together. Emma is a curious figure throughout the book and it’s fair to say that Tomalin is a little hard on her. She ridicules Emma’s own attempts at writing (“readable, but nothing more”), and traduces her early assistance to Hardy when trying to be published. Surely her encouragement must have kept him going in those long weeks waiting for responses from publishers and bouncing back from initial disappointment? Perhaps also if her own literary ambitions had been supported by Hardy in the same way she did his, she may have amounted to more. Perhaps Tomalin thinks Emma should have been grateful to be with such a learned scholar and got on with it rather than having dreams of her own, but this would belie the individuality that Hardy seemed to find attractive in women.

When Tomalin writes about Thomas however, an enormous amount of respect and good feeling pours from the book. It is a beautifully crafted biography about a fascinating man whose life will no doubt fill volumes yet to come. (less)

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Dec 29, 2011 Julie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was a bit disappointed by this book , i didnt feel that at the end of the book i knew any more about Hardy the man and what made him tick, it was interesting the relationship between him and his first wife and how he was trapped in a loveless marriage,and how his 2nd wife set out to capture him ! It is sad that more documents have not survived as his first wife destroyed all the letters he had sent her, it is also a shame more pictures or photos of the houses that he lived in were not included...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Ali rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this biography of one of my favourite writers. Claire Tomalin has done a marvelous job of showing us both Hardy the man and Hardy the writer. It appears she appreciates him slightly more as a poet than a novelist - but her insight into both his novels and his poetry is affectionate and fascinating and may help me better understand his work from now on.
I found the story of the young Hardy growing up in quite poor and difficult circumstances in Bockhampton really fascinating - I suppose I...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Lucy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Let's get the niggles out of the way....there is a little too much speculation: whether Hardy's mother could write, assuming he was disappointed at not visiting the Great Exhibition when there is no evidence, discoursing on what sort of parents Tom and Emma would have been, describing the wedding despite admitting there is no record, and then straying too far into marriage guidance.
There are a few horrible infelicities of language which suggest that maybe her editor is a little in awe of her rep...more

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Mar 17, 2011 Nicki rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, biography-autobiography, non-fiction, beloved-favorites

**This is an excerpt. To read the entire review, go to Every Book and Cranny.**

In this biography Tomalin manages to be detailed but not tedious – which in my view is no small feat. Her writing is fluid, simple, and unpretentious. She does not make too many assumptions. I imagine that when compiling a biography, particularly for an enigmatic character like Hardy, it would be easy to infer too much. Tomalin mostly sticks to what she can corroborate with journals, letters, news articles and the lik...more

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Nov 26, 2009 Nancy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: listened-to, history, biography

Tom and I listened to this while on a trip to Jackson Hole Wyoming. If we'd been able to get NPR in more places I'd never have finished it. Ms. Tomalin was overly thorough with details about the births and deaths of relatives, speculations about when Hardy might have discovered he was conceived before his parents married and how that might have affected his work. Perhaps it is better read than listened to. I'm sure I would have skimmed through many parts of this book if I had been reading it rat...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Besides viewing Hardy's life from a 21st-century perspective, Claire Tomalin emphasizes his poetry as much as his novels. Her decision to do so may have stemmed from a newly found fondness for his poetry, or it may have been her rationale for writing a new Hardy biography among so many already available. Tomalin is a biographer so confident in her own voice that she can make any subject seem fresh and memorable. As in her biographies of Jane Austen, Samuel Pepys, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Katheri

...more

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Sep 08, 2009 Chris Laskey rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a very engaging work that reads with strong clarity. I do find that it doesn't set its teeth too deep and I would say that it floats a little on that top where you wish it could be deeper into Hardy. Of course that can be make for a difficult work as the subject must have a clear and detailed record available, such as the case was for H.G. Wells ,whose biography from several years ago was quite thorough. Hardy at turns was a controller of his image (and his life too it seems) pursuing t...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Alberthe rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, victorian

It is an easy and interesting read, so if you just want a quick overview of Hardy's life, it does the job. I became, however, increasingly annoyed with all the speculation on Tomalin's part - 'he must have thought so-and-so', 'if they did this and that, did they react so-and-so?' When there is no possibility of knowing, I'd have preferred no guesses. Tomalin also inserts her own judgements constantly. Instead of letting e.g. Florence or Emma's words speak for themselves, Tomalin must tell us how...more

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Dec 30, 2010 Kari rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: thomas-hardy

Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy was disappointing for several reasons. The first of these is that it reads more as an extended bibliography of his work. Tomalin carefully outlines (and organizes each chapter according to) the book by Hardy's various publications. She gives a plot summary of each novel, her evaluation of it, and the circumstances in which Hardy penned the work. One wishes for more of Hardy the man, not Hardy the novelist. Overall, however, she sketches a fine portrait...more

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Jun 15, 2010 Stewart rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I was in high school, I read Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native." That was about 45 years ago, and I don't remember a thing about the novel. Much more recently, I read several favorable reviews of Claire Tomalin's 2007 biography of Thomas, so I decided to revisit the English author by way of this biography and read several of his novels later.
Hardy (1840-1928) grew up and spent most of his adult life in the Dorset area of southwest England. Almost all his fiction takes place in this...more

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Dec 22, 2009 Lloyd rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Being a Hardy enthusiast, it maddens me to hear people turn their noses up when he's mentioned before churning out the cheap and hackneyed 'well, he's depressing' line. It was refreshing, then, to finally get around to reading Claire Tomalin's well-reviewed biography which, in part, discusses why Hardy was so often at pains to deny the characters of his Great Novels a certain happily-ever-afterness.

Many of Hardy's denigrators would, though, concede that he writes beautifully, and his oft-neglect...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Lizzie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, read-in-2012

I read this now because at the end of Streets of Laredo, one of the characters picks up a copy of Tess of the D'Urbervilles at a railway station bookstore because of her adopted daughter Tess. I've read a lot of Hardy, though not recently, and like him a lot - his descriptions of rural life are so striking and his characters so compelling. This book is quite interesting, with a lot about his first marriage, which started out happily. Emma Hardy was an aspiring writer and helped him with copying...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Brian Robbins rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Wow! Only reached end of chapter 3 - how dare decorating get in the way! Riveting stuff so far. Often find this isn't the case with the subjects early years in biographies, but this is excellent.

Brilliant biography. She was able to present Hardy's complex relationships in a sufficiently detailed and rounded way, and never with those irritatingly manufactured controvesies that so many writers of biography seem to feel the need to manufacture or to add fuel to e.g. the delightful A. N. Wilson.

Her...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, biography

This is a readable and informative biography of an author of some of the most intense novels in the English language. I learnt lots from it about the facts of Hardy's life, and about how he went about writing the novels he's most famous for (and the poems he regarded as his true calling).

However, I didn't enjoy it as much as Claire Tomalin's previous biography of Samual Pepys. Partly that's because Hardy led a less interesting life than Pepys; he spent most of his time writing, he travelled to L...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Christopher H. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, british-literature, historical-non-fiction, poetry, victorian-literature, thomas-hardy, read-in-2010

Claire Tomalin's biography of Thomas Hardy is simply superb! I believe that I enjoyed the book even more because I recently read (or re-read) all of his major novels, many of his short stories, and much of his poetry. It was simply delightful to be able to immediately relate to the points she made. It was also fascinating to see how much of Hardy's own personal life, as well as that of his Dorset family and friends, influenced his fiction and poetry.

As Tomalin points out and discusses in some de...more

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Oct 02, 2009 Joanna rated it 4 of 5 stars

I always can tell what makes a good biography, at least in my eyes. It’s after having read the final page, when I close the book and try to go about my daily life only to discover that I haven’t quite got the life I’ve just read out of my head, that I know that what I finished was particularly good. Tomalin's biography on one of the most well-respected and widely-read English authors is one such book. Hardy grew up in a poor country family, but even at a young age showed great promise for learni...more

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Dec 14, 2009 Booksrock rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hardy's realism and capacity for detail have always fascinated me. This bio was extremely interesting. However, I never discovered why he wrote what he did; perhaps, that is too much to ask of any biographer. In a way, though she described him as appearing to others and generally "happy", I found him rather souless. In the end, I think I have lots of details and anecdotes and even, some of his personal writings. Yet, I never really found the man who wrote those wonderful books and magnificent po...more

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Apr 18, 2010 Jessica Fure rated it 5 of 5 stars

Should a biography make you want to rush out and read more of the subject's work? This one certainly does.

I picked this up thanks to Nick Hornby's glowing review, and found it really was all that. Tomalin's focus on Hardy as a poet actually serves to help a newcomer to Hardy understand the nuances of his work, and proves an interesting unifying theme to his life.

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Jun 03, 2012 Aileen rated it 5 of 5 stars

claire tomalin has managed another masterpiece.
SHe has researched her sudject very well and has produced a book one cannot put down
hardy lived in repressive time yet wrote sucessfully despite his socialistic principles
I had a falltering attempt at trumpetmajor many years ago but now have an appetriite to revisit this victorian litary master

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Jun 15, 2009 Tracey Wilde rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although Claire Tomalin is obviously a big fan of Thomas Hardy's poetry this was a well balanced biography. Very interesting and very readable. It has made me want to read more of his work especially the poetry.

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Dec 08, 2012 Paul Servini rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, literature-english

I didn't need convincing that Claire Tomalin is one of the leading literary biographers of our times, but if I did, this book would have been enough to convince me. Not only thoroughly researched but written in such a way as to make Hardy come alive. Well-worth the read.

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Mar 15, 2010 Joyce M. Tice rated it 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely excellent. It ties Hardy's life and works together and presents him in full depth of character and detail of life. When I finished I felt as though I knew him personally.

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Nov 24, 2010 Laura McNeal rated it 5 of 5 stars

This biography is beautiful and complete. It is particularly valuable as a glimpse into the life of Thomas Hardy's wife.

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Aug 02, 2011 Melissa added it

Read Millgate's Biography instead. Nothing new here.

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May 22, 2010 Dana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Tomalin is the best of biographers. Exhaustive and lengthy, yet keeps you fascinated by the man she brings to life in this book. Incredible research and rich detail written with real talent.

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Jul 30, 2012 Jennifer Porter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Gives a very good understanding of what Thomas Hardy was like as a writer and person.

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About Claire Tomalin

Born Claire Delavenay in London, she was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge.

She became literary editor of the 'New Statesman' and also the 'Sunday Times'. She has written several noted biographies and her work has been recognised with the award of the 1990 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1991 Hawthornden Prize for 'The Invisible Woman The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens'.

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The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens

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