From WolfWikis

ENG 463: The Victorian Period

Introduction

Thomas Hardy was born on Egdon Heath, in Dorset near Dorchester on June 2, 1840. After completing school in Dorchester Hardy undertook an apprenticeship with an architect. He worked in an office, which specialized in the restoration of churches. At the age of 22 Hardy moved to London and began writing poetry, which idealized rural life. Hardy returned to Dorchester in 1867 and once again worked with the architectural firm in Dorchester for a brief time.

Hardy's literary career has two distinct phases, fiction and poetry. Thomas Hardy, like many authors, encountered a large degree of opposition to his writing initially making it difficult for Hardy to find a publisher for his work. To overcome lack of interest in publication of his poetry Hardy turned to fiction. In 1867 Hardy wrote The Poor Man and The Lady, which was also rejected for publication. The first novel of Hardy's to gain acceptance was Far From The Madding Crowd (1874) and as a result of its success Hardy devoted himself entirely to writing. Hardy continued to write until his death in Dorchester on January 11, 1928.

After his death Hardy's ashes were cremated in Dorchester and buried with impressive ceremonies in the Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. It had been Hardy's wish that he be buried at Stinsford. However, after his death, the authorities at Westminster Abbey suggested he be buried in 'Poets' Corner'. Faced with this dilemma his wife decided that his heart should be buried at Stinsford and his ashes be interred in the Abbey.

Topics

Class, Tradition and Money

Thomas Hardy came from a working class family. Traditionally his family was comprised of laborers, mostly brick masons, and his parents were no exception. Hardy’s father, Thomas Hardy Sr., was a brick mason, who eventually obtained the status of master mason. Hardy’s mother, Emma, was the daughter of a servant and worked as a cook and a Lady’s maid. The Hardy’s low social standing was not unusual for the period, as Sally Mitchell points out. According to Mitchell “three out of every four (people) did manual work.” (18) Mitchell further explains that manual laborers in the Victorian period “earned just enough to stay alive; they could be thrown into poverty by illness, layoffs or sudden misfortune (e.g. a factory fire) that caused even short term unemployment.” (18) Although, the Hardy’s origins are in the working class, both father and son were socially mobile and ended up in the middle class. Sally Mitchell provides evidence that although achieving a higher social standin was certainly difficult it was by no means unprecedented. “The middle class grew in size and importance during the Victorian period. It made up about 15 percent of the population in 1837 and perhaps 25 percent in 1901.” (20) In Hardy In History A study in literary sociology Peter Widdowson discusses some of the challenges people such as Thomas Hardy encountered as a consequence of their social mobility, when describing Hardy’s attempts of entering the writing profession: Hardy, like so many other lower-middle-class young men of the new meritocracy, could never have competed on the same terms as his more privileged colleagues: the sense of class inferiority would have been strong and continuous. (Widdowson 133)

The fiction of Thomas Hardy places a great deal of emphasis on class. A good example of this can be found in Hardy’s novel The Hand of Ethelberta. Elbertha, who is presented as having a great talent for telling fictional sories to entertain guests, begins to tell one about a poor girl’s social mobility. The story she tells is clearly autobiographical. ‘'The narrative began by introducing to their notice a girl of the poorest and meanest parentage, the daughter of a serving-man, and the fifth of ten children. She graphically recounted, as if they were her own, the strange dreams and ambitious longings of this child when young, her attempts to acquire education, partial failures, partial successes, and constant struggles; instancing how, on one of these occasions, the girl concealed herself under a bookcase of the library belonging to the mansion in which her father served as footman, and having taken with her there, like a young Fawkes, matches and a halfpenny candle, was going to sit up all night reading when the family had retired, until her father discovered and prevented her scheme. Then followed her experiences as nursery-governess, her evening lessons under self-selected masters, and her ultimate rise to a higher grade among the teaching sisterhood. Next came another epoch. To the mansion in which she was engaged returned a truant son, between whom and the heroine an attachment sprang up. The master of the house was an ambitious gentleman just knighted, who, perceiving the state of their hearts, harshly dismissed the homeless governess, and rated the son, the consequence being that the youthful pair resolved to marry secretly, and carried their resolution into effect. The runaway journey came next, and then a moving description of the death of the young husband, and the terror of the bride.

The guests began to look perplexed, and one or two exchanged whispers. This was not at all the kind of story that they had expected; it was quite different from her usual utterances, the nature of which they knew by report. Ethelberta kept her eye upon Lord Mountclere. Soon, to her amazement, there was that in his face which told her that he knew the story and its heroine quite well. When she delivered the sentence ending with the professedly fictitious words: 'I thus was reduced to great distress, and vainly cast about me for directions what to do,' Lord Mountclere's manner became so excited and anxious that it acted reciprocally upon Ethelberta; her voice trembled, she moved her lips but uttered nothing. To bring the story up to the date of that very evening had been her intent, but it was beyond her power. The spell was broken; she blushed with distress and turned away, for the folly of a disclosure here was but too apparent. When everybody's attention was thus occupied Lord Mountclere whispered to Ethelberta tremulously, 'Don't tell more: you think too much of them: they are no better than you.”

The story told by Ethelberta is just one example of how Hardy uses the Victorian periods strict class structure to develop the plots of his novels and the extremely important role, which a person’s class played in their daily life.

Working Life

Thomas Hardy, as a result of his father’s success, was able to break from the family’s tradition of manual labor. Hardy pursued a career more aligned with his family’s newly acquired status as middle class. In 1856 Hardy was articled to Dorchester architect John Hicks. As an apprentice to Hicks Hardy’s work consisted mainly of surveying and measuring churches to be restored. By 1860 Hardy finished his apprenticeship with Hicks and was working as Hicks’ assistant when he decided to move to London for more training. Hardy arrived in London in 1862 with no job lined up he was fortunate find work with Arthur Blomfield. Blomfield was, at that time, looking for a draughtsman to help in the renovation of gothic churches and offered Hardy the job. Hardy stayed in London and in the employment of Arthur Blomfield until 1869. At which time he returned to Dorchester after the death of John Hicks. At the time of Hicks’ death there were projects that were unfinished. Hicks’ successor invited Hardy back to Dorchester to assist in finishing these projects and employed Hardy as a supervisor, charged with overseeing the remaining rebuilding projects. In The Life of Thomas Hardy Turner suggests that Hardy’s return to Dorchester was a welcomed event for Hardy, since his writing career, which he had begun in London, was failing. (18) Turner also points out that Hardy needed time to consider what to do next, whether or not to pursue writing, and returning to Dorchester allowed him to earn an income while considering his options. (18) Fortunately for Hardy his writing career finally became a lucrative means of support and he was able to focus on writing full time in 1874 after Far From the Madding Crowd was published. Hardy continued writing and with each work gained even more success, but he also had other interests. Thomas Hardy was also a man of the law. Although not formally trained in a legal profession he researched and studied law to great lengths. Hardy qualified as magistrate, justice of the peace, for the county of Dorset in April 1894 and held the position until 1916. Thomas Hardy was a man of many skills (architect, writer and magistrate) but his literary legacy will overshadow all of his other professional accomplishments, since his literary work is some of the best produced in the Victorian period.
Thomas Hardy worte a variety of literature: poetry, plays and Novels. The titles of his works are listed below and are available online. http://www.online-literature.com/hardy/

Fiction:
A Changed Man and Other Tales
A Group of Noble Dames
A Laodicean
A Pair of Blue Eyes
Desperate Remedies
Far From the Madding Crowd
Jude the Obscure
Life's Little Ironies
Tess of the d'Urbervilles <br The Hand of Ethelberta
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Return of the Native
The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid
The Trumpet Major
The Well-Beloved
The Woodlanders
Two on a Tower
Under the Greenwood Tree
Plays: The Dynasts
Poetry Books
Late Lyrics and Earlier <br Moments of Vision
Wessex Poems and Other Verses
Short Stories:
Squire Petricks Lady
The Withered Arm
A Mere Interlude
The Three Strangers
An Unimaginative Woman
Fellow Townsmen
Interlopers at the Knap
The Distracted Preacher
Poetry:
Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?
The Man He Killed

Science and the Urban World

Thomas Hardy did not attend Oxford or Cambridge, but there is no doubt that he was considered well educated. Hardy was always studying a variety of subjects and took great interest in the scientific advances of the Victorian period. In Daily Life in Victorian England Mitchell singles out Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. “Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection an immediate bestseller when it was published in 1859.” (84) Like many Victorian’s Hardy was fascinated by Darwin’s work. In the essay “Hardy and Biology” Angelique Richardson explores the impact that Darwin’s work had on Hardy. Richardson credits Hardy, as having stated in response to Darwin’s work, “that as a young man he had been among the earliest acclaimers’ of The Origin of Species.” (156) Richardson goes on to suggest that Darwin’s latter work, The Descent of Man, which stressed the importance of sexual selection, had the greatest influence on Hardy. According to Richardson “He could now combine his interest in love with his scientific interests.” (157) Richardson points out that Hardy was very cautious in regards to the views of science, which his readers took from his work. Hardy published a statement on the subject, which Richardson includes in his essay. “I have repeatedly stated in prefaces and elsewhere that the views in [my works of art] are seemings, provisional impressions only, used for artistic purposes because they represent approximately the impressions of the age and are plausible till somebody produces better theories of the universe.” (159) No matter how cautious Hardy meant to be about the scientific perceptions readers derived from his book, it is clear that Hardy, like the rest of Victorian society, was engulfed in the fast changing world in which they lived.

Another scientific theory of the time, which influenced Hardy was Francis Galton’s theory of eugenics. Galton was Darwin’s cousin and expressed his belief in human selective breeding. Richardson suggests that Hardy’s Poem “A Practical Woman” is in response to Galton’s theory:

She went away. She disappeared.
Years, years. Then back she came:
In her hand was a Blooming boy
Mentally and in frame.

“I found a father at last who’d suit
The purpose in my head,
And used him till he’d done his job,”
Was all thereon she said. (161-2)

Government and the Law

Thomas Hardy’s notebooks indicate that he was interested in the law from an early age. Certainly some of his interest was research for writing material, but it is clear that he studied the law to satisfy his own curiosity. In the 1880’s Hardy educated himself on law by researching current and past court cases, which were reported in the Times and The Dorset County Chronicle. Hardy also attended court trials in London and Dorchester.The court cases Hardy viewed ranged from divorce cases to minor criminal actions. The time he spent viewing cases provided a great deal of material for his novels.

Hardy’s participation in the legal system was not limited to the role of spectator. Although not formally trained in a legal profession he researched and studied law to great lengths. Hardy qualified as magistrate, justice of the peace, for the county of Dorset in April 1894 and held the position until 1916. In his position as magistrate Hardy evidence involving legal issue ranging from arson to murder.

In Thomas Hardy and the Law William Davis points out the effect that the Law had on Hardy’s fiction. Davis identifies four of Hardy’s novels in which the law plays a critical role. “Hardy’s use of law in his fiction is inextricably linked to the motif of failed human relationships that dominates his work and connects novel to novel.” (47) Four of Hardy’s novels contain legal inquests. In Desperate Remedies the inquiry into Mrs. Manton’s death includes the testimony of witnesses and the coroner, examination of the evidence and the finding of a jury:
Two or three additional witnesses gave unimportant testimony. The coroner summed up, and the jury without hesitation found that the deceased Mrs. Manston came by her death accidentally through the burning of the Three Tranters Inn. (Desperate Remedies)

In A Pair of Blue Eyes the inquests into the death of Mrs. Jethway is subject to the same type of inquest.

House, Food and Clothes

In Victorian England clothing was one way a person could show social standing, or in the case of a few Victorians their arrival into a new social class. As Mitchell explains in Daily Life in Victorian England “During the Victorian period men’s clothing became less colorful and more business like.” (Mitchell 133) The clothing worn by most Victorians was practical, suited for their occupation. “The man working in offices or professions almost always wore a black coat, trousers and a white shirt.” (135) This image of the Victorian professional male is in stark contrast to his working-class counterpart. According to Mitchell “Working- class men wore clothes of plain cut heavier fabric.” (Mitchell 134)

Hardy, like many authors of the period, used clothing in his work as a way to identify a characters position in society. He also utilizes clothing to present a character’s social ascent. In The Mayor of Casterbridge Hardy describes Elizabeth’s perception of clothing: “It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly becoming good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and for the first time in her life commanding ready money, she would go and make a fool of herself by dress. But no. The reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth did was nowhere more conspicuous than in this question of clothes. To keep in the rear of opportunity in matters of indulgence is as valuable a habit as to keep abreast of opportunity in matters of enterprise. This unsophisticated girl did it by an innate perceptiveness that was almost genius. Thus she refrained from bursting out like a water-flower that spring, and clothing herself in puffings and knick-knacks, as most of the Casterbridge girls would have done in her circumstances. Her triumph was tempered by circumspection, she had still that field-mouse fear of the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and oppression.” (Hardy 85)

Hardy realizes that no matter how reserved Elizabeth is about clothing due to her social standing there is a point at which she must dress in accordance with her social position:

“We now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantle or silk spencer, dark dress, and carrying a sunshade. In this latter article she drew the line at fringe, and had it plain edged, with a little ivory ring for keeping it closed. It was odd about the necessity for that sunshade. She discovered that with the clarification of her complexion and the birth of pink cheeks her skin had grown more sensitive to the sun's rays. She protected those cheeks forthwith, deeming spotlessness part of womanliness.

Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with him more frequently than with her mother now.” (Hardy 85)

Houses were another crucial element in declaring one’s social standing in the Victorian Period. Thomas Hardy relied on his own skills as an architect to design his residence, Max Gate, in 1885, which he commissioned his father and other family members to build.

Family and Social Rituals

The Victorian period had many social rituals, which dictated daily life. The social elite were expected to be in London for the season while Parliament was in session and therefore social ritual determined, at least for that time of the year, where a person may live. Another social ritual of the period is calling on friends. To do this one would often send a card, invitation, to request visitors or to inform friends that they were accepting callers. In Thomas Hardy and the Church Jedrzejewski presents a passage taken from Hardy’s notebooks, which relates how guest were invited to one’s house. “One day I received from Stephen a mysterious note asking me to call in the evening as late as I liked” (Jedrzejewski 18) Sally Mitchell explains the Victorian’s rituals relating to mourning, specifically the way one should dress and for how long, in her book Daily Life in Victorian England. “Full-scale widow’s weeds (i.e. mourning garments) in the middle of the century required a crepe dress with a plain collar and broad cuffs made of white muslin, a bombazine cloak and a crepe bonnet and a veil for outdoors.” (Mitchell 162) Mitchell also comments that there were different lengths and degrees to mourning periods. Hardy uses the Victorian mourning ritual, as it relates to a widow, as he describes the attire of Susan Newman. When Susan reappears she is dressed as a mourning widow, as Hardy describes: “She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her companion, also in black, appeared as a well- formed young woman about eighteen, completely possessed of that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itself beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour.” (Hardy 19)

Hardy’s description of Susan is consistent with the Victorian rituals for a widower

Education

In Daily Life in Victorian England Mitchell explains the differences of education received by members of different social classes. “Education not only varied among classes but also helped determine class.” (Mitchell 166) This is certainly true for Thomas Hardy, as Peter Widdowson explains in Hardy in History A study in literary sociology:

“One of the commonest perceived forms of upward social mobility in nineteenth-century England was through education. (Hardy’s fiction continually introduces it as a motif, although never, significantly, as unproblematically beneficial; more often it is the cause of disruption, alienation, non-communication, frustration and so on.) Hardy’s own progress falls within this common pattern.” (Widdowson 132)

Paul Turner suggests, in his book The Life of Thomas Hardy, that his mother’s ambitions for him required Thomas Hardy demanded a better education than she had received. (Turner 7) As a result of his mother belief in the value of education Turner goes on to describe Hardy’s formal education. For Hardy his initiation into education came when he spent a year at a village school. At the age of 10 he was sent to Dorchester to attend a British school run by a nonconformist society and then an independent commercial academy, which was started by his teacher, Isaac Last. At the age of 13 began taking extra lessons from Last, which his Hardy’s father paid for, in Latin. After being articled to John Hicks, Hardy began a stringent course of self-study, which included Greek, Latin, the reading of classics by homer and Virgil and a study of English poetry. Hardy’s self-study efforts were assisted by his friends, who had attended University and also John Hicks. (Turner 7, 10)

Health and Medicine

During the Victorian period health was a major concern. According to Mitchell in Daily Life in Victorian England “Most people depended on traditional remedies, herbal medicine, homemade prescriptions, and the health advice passed along by household manuals and elderly woman” (Mitchell 189) to stay healthy. Thomas Hardy did not trust Victorian doctors. While on his deathbed Hardy refused to let the nurse hired in to the room. Other specialists had already been brought in and said he should recover with rest, but he was dying and there was nothing that could be done. In Thomas Hardy A Life Revisited Millgate explains how Hardy almost died as a child. “His very survival to adulthood was long in doubt- his parents once said in his hearing, thinking him asleep that they did not expect to rear him- and he retained into extreme old age a vivid sense of his early experiences of sickness and weakness.” (Millgate 21)

Holidays, Sports and Recreation

When Hardy wasn’t writing or studying he enjoyed playing music. Hardy got his passion for music from his father, who played the cello. Hardy played the violin and in the evenings, while in Dorchester, Hardy enjoyed playing his violin in the company of friends. Hardy’s interest in music soon subsided to make time for his studies when he moved to London, but he eventually rekindled his passion for music, While in London Hardy purchased a violin and begin playing alongside the piano in the house where he was staying, often playing tunes from Italian Operas. He also sang tenor in Blomfield’s office-choir. Sally Mitchell explains the importance of music in the daily life of Victorians in her book Daily Life in Victorian England. “Making as well as hearing music was more a part of of Victorian daily life than of modern day life.” (Mitchell 225)

In Daily Life in Victorian England Mitchell discusses the sensation novel as a popular form of recreation. “Publishers encouraged readers to rush out and buy the next issue by concentrating on what were called sensation-novels- stories featuring secrets, surprises , suspense, exaggerated emotions, dramatic chases and train wrecks, and an overriding mystery whose solution was held until the last installment.” (Mitchell 235) In His biography of Hardy, The Life of Thomas Hardy, Turner discusses how Hardy, in need of money to support his writing, set out to capitalize on the popularity of the Victorian sensation-novel. “So the novel that he started to writing that autumn was as sensational as he could make it.” (Turner 19) Unfortunately for Hardy his novel may have been to sensational for Victorian tastes, since no publisher would publish it.

Religion and Reform

The Victorian period in England was a time of religious reformation. Sally Mitchell States in Daily Life in Victorian England “Of the people who attended services on March 30,1851 49 percent were nonconformists, 47 percent were Anglican and 4 percent were Roman Catholic.” (Mitchell 240-1) According to Jan Jedrzejewski in Thomas Hardy and the Church “The parish in Dorset where Hardy was raised typified the conservative rural Anglicanism of the early nineteenth-century.” (jedrzejewski 7) It is clear that Hardy’s parents attended services, but they were not the most devout followers of scripture. Evidence for this view is the fact that Hardy was born only 6 months after his parent’s were married.

In 1837 Arthur Shirley, the new vicar at the parish set out to transform the parish to conform to the ideas of the Oxford Movement. Mitchell explains the influence of the Oxford Movement by stating “Clergy influenced by the Oxford Movement dominated the church of England by 1853.” (Mitchell 243) Jedrzejewski describes Hardy’s early influence by the Oxford Movement when he states: “Hardy’s early religious education has generally been described as fairly rigorous and consistently High Church, with regular attendance at the Tractarian service at Stinsford constructing an indispensable part of the Hardys’ family life and consequently exerting a major influence on the future writer’s memories and imagination.” (Jedrzejewski 7)

Whatever the early influence of the Church was on Hardy it is clear that Hardy, like many Victorians, began to separate from the traditional beliefs of the Church, as he grew older. Jedrzejewski includes a note Hardy made in one of his notebooks explains the separation from religion that was occurring in Victorian Society:

“In England doubt is beginning to spread, even in secluded country-places and among the lower middle class, which has so long remained thought-proof.” (Jedrzejewski 24) In his work Hardy creates clerical Characters, who are depicted in different ways, changing as Hardy’s personal views change. In Early works such as Desperate Remedies Hardy creates clerical characters, such as the rector of Carriford, John Raunham, who are flawed but fundamentally good. In a latter novel, The Hand of Ethelberta, Hardy has a mother give a speech about her son joining the clergy, which can best be described as satirical in nature:

‘”We are thinking of making Joseph a parson,' said Mrs. Chickerel.

'Indeed! a parson.”

“Yes; 'tis a genteel living for the boy. And he's talents that way. Since he has been under masters he knows all the strange sounds the old Romans and Greeks used to make by way of talking, and the love stories of the ancient women as if they were his own. I assure you, Mr. Julian, if you could hear how beautiful the boy tells about little Cupid with his bow and arrows, and the rows between that pagan apostle Jupiter and his wife because of another woman, and the handsome young gods who kissed Venus, you'd say he deserved to be made a bishop at once!” ‘

Morality

In Daily Life in Victorian England Sally Mitchell discusses Victorian morality, as it relates to the way women were suppose to view sex. ”Some Victorian discussions of ideal womanhood insisted that a respectable girl should be completely ignorant about sex and sexuality until initiated by her husband on the wedding night.” (Mitchell 268) In his article published in English Studies in 1994 Byron Caminero-Santangelo points out how Thomas Hardy explores the Victorian moral theory of sexual purity in woman in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. “For Angel, Virginity, purity and close proximity to nature are connected with a formlessness waiting to be formed by a male will. […] Significantly, most Victorians considered woman naturally pure and unsullied by sex by sexual desire” (Caminero- Santangelo 47) A second aspect of Victorian morality, which Mitchell focuses on is respectability. “Respectability was another watchword. It was used as a primary social distinction, often more important than the class line.” (Mitchell 262) Hardy uses the idea of Victorian respectability in a number of his works. In The Mayor of Casterbridge there is a scene, where Susan, about to approach an old woman, is warned by her daughter that it is not respectable to do so:

"She was here at that time," resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as if to draw nearer.

"Don't speak to her--it isn't respectable!" urged the other.

"I will just say a word--you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here." (Hardy 21)

The importance of ‘respectability’ to Victorians can determined by the fact that the word is used 15 times, just in this novel in reference to character.

England and Empire

In Daily Life in Victorian England Mitchell explains how the British Empire was vast during the Victorian era and a source of national pride for most Victorians. “Most of England’s people felt a sense of unrivaled national importance.” (Mitchell 273) Thomas Hardy was not one of those people, In Thomas Hardy A Biography Revisted Michael Millgate explains that Hardy was not a supporter of all the armed conflict, but supported the soldiers once war was underway. Millgate includes an exert from an article Hardy wrote to demonstrate this point: “Why should not Africa be free, as in America? Peace at any cost of pride & aggrandizement, is my idea.” (Millgate 371)

Hardy wrote a few poems about war, some in favor and some against. One such poem is “I Looked Up from My Writing”

I looked up from my writing, 
And gave a start to see,
As if rapt in my inditing,
The moon's full gaze on me. Her meditative misty head
 Was spectral in its air,
And I involuntarily said,
"What are you doing there?" "Oh, I've been scanning pond and hole
And waterway hereabout
For the body of one with a sunken soul
Who has put his life-light out. "Did you hear his frenzied tattle?
It was sorrow for his son
Who is slain in brutish battle,
Though he has injured none. "And now I am curious to look
Into the blinkered mind
Of one who wants to write a book
In a world of such a kind." Her temper overwrought me,
And I edged to shun her view,
For I felt assured she thought me
One who should drown him too.

References

Works:

Davis, William. Thomas Hardy and the Law. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Press. 2003.
Hardy, Thomas.The Mayor of Casterbridge. NY: Penguin Putnam. 2003
Jedrzejewski, Jan. Thomas Hardy and the Church. NY: St. Martin’s Press. 1996
Mallett, Phillip. Thomas Hardy: Texts and Contexts. NY: Palgrave Mcmillan 2002.
Millgate, Michael. Thomas Hardy A Biography Revisited. NY: Oxford Univerity Press. 2004.
Mitchell, Sally. Daily Life in Victorian england. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Turner, Paul. The Life of Thomas Hardy. Malden Mass: Blackwell Publishers. 1998
Widdowson, Peter. Hardy in History A study in literary sociology. NY: Routledge. 1989