Thomas Hardy was born on 2 June in 1840. (Seventeen years later to the day, composer Edward Elgar would be born.) Let’s raise a glass of something (cider?) to one of the great poets and novelists of English literature.
1. Much of the common perception of Thomas Hardy is incorrect, or, at the very least, inaccurate. Many people, if asked to describe Hardy’s background, would probably paint us a picture of a rustic, poor, and self-educated man who worked his way up the social ladder to become a celebrated author. Whilst his upbringing was certainly rural rather than metropolitan, he wasn’t exactly poor: his father was a successful builder who had six men working for him. They were hardly on the breadline. Whilst it’s true that Hardy’s family lacked the funds to send him to university – instead, he left school at sixteen to train as an architect – he had had a perfectly sufficient school education prior to this. He was hardly an ‘autodidact’, or wholly self-taught, man. As Terry Eagleton puts it in his witty and informative The English Novel: An Introduction
2. At his birth, Hardy had been presumed stillborn until the midwife pointed out that the baby lived. Thus the great writer of ironic circumstances and strange twists of ‘fate’ had an appropriate induction into the world. He went on to live – and live for a long time, to the ripe old age of 87.
3. Hardy had left instructions that his body was to be interred, without great ceremony, in the churchyard in his local village of Stinsford, Dorset. But… The government had other ideas: the author of such classic novels as The Mayor of Casterbridge and Far from the Madding Crowd should be buried, with full honour, in Westminster Abbey alongside the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer and Charles Dickens. Eventually, a compromise was reached: Hardy would be interred in Poets’ Corner but his heart would be buried in his native Dorset. (The rumour that Hardy’s heart, which was kept in a biscuit tin prior to burial, was eaten by his cat before it could be interred, is unsubstantiated.)
4. At his funeral in 1928, Hardy’s pallbearers included Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy, A. E. Housman, J. M. Barrie, Edmund Gosse, the Leader of the Opposition, and even the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. He had become part of the literary establishment, although he hadn’t written a novel for over thirty years, after the adverse criticism his 1895 novel Jude the Obscure received from reviewers – and the Bishop of Wakefield, who reportedly burned the book for being immoral. Instead, Hardy had concentrated on poetry in his later life (he had started out as a poet before taking up novel-writing in the early 1870s). He has a reputation for being something of a gloomy author, and it’s true that his favoured – and, it must be said, more artistically successful – mode was the tragic rather than the comic, putting him at odds with many of his fellow Victorian novelists, whose books often end in union and marriage rather than death and isolation. But it might be more accurate to say that, like many great English writers, Hardy enjoyed the fine line that separates comedy from tragedy. ‘All comedy is tragedy, if you only look deep enough into it,’ he opined in a letter to John Addington Symonds in April 1889.
5. The ‘Hardy Monument’ near Weymouth is often assumed to commemorate Thomas Hardy, and it does … but not the writer Thomas Hardy. Instead, the monument memorialises Vice Admiral Thomas Hardy, a commander at the Battle of Trafalgar – the one, in other words, whom Nelson, in his dying moments, wanted to kiss.
If you enjoyed these Hardy facts, why not discover one of his little-known novels courtesy of our summary of Hardy’s A Laodicean, his curious 1881 novel merging medieval castles, photography, lesbianism, and telegrams. You might also enjoy our analysis of one of his best-loved poems, ‘The Darkling Thrush’ and our analysis of his fine early poem, ‘Neutral Tones’.
Image: Thomas Hardy, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Interesting
As always
:)
Thanks for posting this! I read (and enjoyed very much) a lot of Thomas Hardy in college and now I’m feeling the urge to go back and re-read!
Interesting post!
An interesting read – loved studying him at school
As a teenager, I read every single one of Thomas Hardy’s novels, after falling in love with that rascal Sergeant Troy in the 1967 film adaptation of “Far from the Madding Crowd”. What a fine influence Terence Stamp was on my literary studies!
I do love me some Hardy ;) Tess of the D’Ubervilles was my introduction to him. A small hardcover book that a friend recommended while we browsed in a bookstore in Canada, on our way home to New York. That trip was roughly 40 years ago and I still have the book and the love for Hardy. Thank you for such an interesting post!
Reblogged this on 1WriteWay and commented:
A fine literary Monday morning for me it seems, as Interesting Literature has a few interesting facts about Thomas Hardy to share. Tess of the D’Ubervilles was my introduction to Hardy: A friend found a small hardcover edition and recommended it to while we browsed in a bookstore in Canada, on our way home to New York. That trip was roughly 40 years ago and I still have the book and the love for Hardy.
Thanks for your interesting facts about Thomas Hardy. He was meant to grace literature rather than die at birth! Enjoyed that one especially.
Reblogged this on kyrosmagica and commented:
I reblogged this about Thomas Hardy, from Interesting Literature. Authors are an interesting bunch, and Hardy was no exception. I particularly liked the second fact about his birth. This author was meant to be!
As a big Hardy fan it’s nice to see both that he is still well-read, and also that he was as equally respected during his own life. I love his later poetry though, so I’m hardly disappointed that he stopped writing novels.
Reblogged this on Gabriella West and commented:
As we usher in June, I decided to reblog this from the site Interesting Literature in honor of Thomas Hardy’s birthday today. He was an odd, elusive man, so perhaps it’s no surprise that he was a Gemini! As a teenager I read all his books, but particularly liked the less tragic ones, like “Under the Greenwood Tree” and “The Trumpet-Major.”
And 17 years after the birth of Hardy, to the day, was born another spectacularly mustachio-ed English genius, Edward Elgar. What a shame the two of them never competed together in a soup-eating competition!
Regarding Jude the Obscure and its ecclesiastical incineration, Hardy himself observed, ruefully, that, following the savaging the book received from critics “its next misfortune was to be burned by a bishop – probably in his despair at not being able to burn me.”
Thank you for a fascinating post.
Interesting stuff as always……..but why the hate for Geminis? We’re just two people like everbody else!!
Colin and Colin
Thank you so much for this post. I am a huge fan of Thomas Hardy. I really wish he were still alive. Despite his gloomy novels, his works are so outstanding. The language, the characterization.. every thing that he writes is a magic. Sooo in love with Hardy… Thanks again!
Fascinating! I studied his poems for my A levels long ago and loved Far From the Madding Crowd. Great writer :)
Fascinating as always – thank you.
Delicious
Number 1 was also tasty, thanks for these truly enchanting facts
I’m using the pic and the quote for a post. I’m also linking this post. He is my favorite author, one of the tastes I imbibed from my grandfather. :)
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! And yes, please share both :)
Already did, I couldn’t wait for confirmation! :)
And thank you!